UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
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VI 
SOCIALISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS 



SOCIALISM 

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS 



BY 



O. D. SKELTON, Ph.D. 

SIB TOHN A.MACDONALD PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCD 
queen's university, KINGSTON, CANADA 




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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



1024S6 



COPYRIGHT, IQIIj BY HART, SCHAFFNER ft MARS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published February iqir 



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PREFACE 

This series of books owes its existence to the generosity of 
Messrs. Hart, Schaffner, and Marx, of Chicago, who have 
shown a special interest in trying to draw the attention of 
American youth to the study of economic and commercial 
subjects, and to encourage the best thinking of the country 
to investigate the problems which vitally affect the busi- 
ness world of to-day. For this purpose they have delegated 
to the undersigned Committee the task of selecting topics, 
making all announcements, and awarding prizes annually 
for those who wish to compete. 

In the year ending June 1, 1908, the following topics 
were assigned: 

1. An examination into the economic causes of large 
fortunes in this country. 

2. The history of one selected railway system in the 
United States. 

3. The untouched agricultural resources of North 
America. 

4. Resumption of specie payments in 1879. 

5. Industrial combinations and the financial collapse of 
1903. 

6. The case against socialism. 

7. Causes of the rise of prices since 1898. 

8. Should inequalities of wealth be regulated by a pro- 
gressive income tax? 

9. The effect of the industrial awakening of Asia upon 
the economic development of the West. 



vi PREFACE 

10. The causes of the recent rise in the price of silver. 

11. The relation of an elastic bank currency to bank 
credits in an emergency. 

12. A just and practicable method of taxing railway 
property. 

A first prize of one thousand dollars, and a second prize 
of five hundred dollars, in cash, were offered for the best 
studies presented by Class A, composed exclusively of all 
persons who had received the bachelor's degree from an 
American college in 1896, or thereafter. 

The present volume was awarded the first prize. 

Professor J. Laurence Laughlin, 

University of Chicago, Chairman. 
Professor J, B. Clark, 

Columbia University, 
Professor Henry C. Adams, 

University of Michigan. 
Horace White, Esq., 

New York City. 
Hon. Carroll D. Wright, 

Clark College. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

* Introduction 

Definition of socialism as indictment, analysis, panacea, cam- 
paign. — Survey of socialist systems, ancient and medieval, 
eighteenth-century speculation and nineteenth-century Uto- 
pianism; the significance of Marx 1-15 

CHAPTER II 

The Socialist Indictment 

Causes of the success of socialist agitation: the psychology of 
unrest. — The counts in the indictment against capitalism: 
gap between private profit and social gain, competitive waste, 
crises, commercial and financial fraud, ugliness of modem 
wares; pitiable condition of workmen, wage-slavery, danger 
and uncertainty of employment, unfair division of product, 
housing and mortality evils, ethical consequences; instance 
of more extreme denunciation 16-40 

CHAPTER m 

The Indictment Considered 

Exaggeration and lack of perspective of the socialist criticism. 
Failure to recognize strong points of the competitive system. 
Where grievances are real, indictment, directed against myth- 
ical extreme individualism, ignores remedial activities inherent 
in present social organization : role of the state, the employer, 
and the trade union. — Standards of distribution and of con- 
sumption; moral responsibilities of competition; fallacy of 
throwing whole responsibility for individual ills on social 
institutions; impossibility of a flawless order 41-61 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 

Utopian Socialism 

I. The Utopian analysis: origin of social wrong in ignorance 
of nature's laws and in knavery; schools of Fourier and Saint- 
Simon. II. The Utopian ideal: autonomous community or 
state organization of industry; detailed proposals. III. The 
Utopian tactics: peaceful persuasion of all classes alike and 
community experiment; the failure and its reasons .... 62-94 

CHAPTER V 

The Marxian Analysis: I. The Materialistic 
Conception of History 

Importance of doctrine in Marxian system; advance in histor- 
ical sense over Utopians; influence of Hegelianism in shaping 
doctrine. — Two interpretations of the doctrine, first stress- 
ing economic factor in history, second stressing class struggle 
as result of economic conditions. — Criticism of both ver- 
sions 9d-li4 



CHAPTER VI 

The Marxian Analysis: II. Value and Surplus 

Value 

The class struggle revealed by the materialistic conception of 
history takes form, in capitalistic era, of struggle between 
capitalist and proletarian. — Mechanism of capitalist ex- 
ploitation explained by theory of surplus value, which again 
rests on labor theory of value; untenability of both theories . 115-136 



CHAPTER Vll 

The Marxian Analysis: HI. Law of Capitalist 

Development 

Forecast of capitalist development, based on surplus-value ex- 
ploitation, and leading inevitably to breakdown of capital- 
ism and establishment of socialism. — Formation of indus- 



CONTENTS ix 

trial reserve army; increasing misery of workers; concentra- 
tion of industry and centralization of wealth; crises. — Break- 
down and revisionist abandonment of the theory .... 137-176 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Modern Socialist Ideal 

Socialist reticence regarding positive proposals; its causes. — 
Expropriation or purchase; iinit of organization; possibility 
and consistency of variety in organization; selection of the ad- 
ministration, allotment of work, regulation of output; stand- 
ards of distribution, maintenance of efficiency ; marriage and 
, population problems 177-219 

CHAPTER IX 

The Modern Movement 

Aggressive tactics of post-Utopian socialism ; policy of force, 
. activity of the International. — Rise of national movements; 
survey of the most significant developments. — Germany, 
the environment, evolution in tactics and in attitude on chief 
current issues. — France, the environment, drift toward op- 
portunism, rise and significance of syndicalism. — The general 
Continental situation. — The United Kingdom, the environ- 
ment, characteristics, and strength of the different sections. — 
The United States, causes of slow progress and recently in- 
creasing strength, opportunist control. — Canadian situation. 
— The general outlook 220-311 

Bibliography 819 

Index •• S23 



SOCIALISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODtrCTION 

Few movements have been more widely discussed and 
at the same time more vaguely defined than socialism. 
The movements to which the term applies have been so 
diverse in starting-point and in goal, so variously colored 
by individual experience and social environment, that the 
common element is often difficult to discern. Socialism 
has always been an opposition policy, and, as is the way 
with oppositions, under its banner have marched the most 
motley forces, at one chiefly in that all were passionately 
protesting against Things as They Are. It has not yet been 
codified and delimited by the actualities of office. It is a 
living movement, changing insensibly with every change 
in the mental horizon or material conditions of the time, 
and so impossible to label with the cheerful finality with 
which the scientist treats a paleolithic fossil. The signi- 
ficance of the term is still further clouded by its frequent 
use as a bogey with which to ward off any assault whatever 
on vested rights or vested wrongs — though serviceability 
for this scarecrow function is happily declining — and 
by the counter-tendency, wherever disrepute gives place to 
vogue, of sundry well-meaning sentimentalists to adopt 
the label to denote their half-baked yearnings^ 

Definiteness may most easily be given the conception 
by considering it in its relation to the existing industrial 
system, which socialists are wont to summarize as capital- 
ism. This relation presents four main aspects, which may 
be noted briefly. 



2 SOCIALISM 

Socialism is in the first place an indictment of any and 
all industrial systems based on private property and com- 
petition. The indictment is urged hotly and with unsparing 
detail, in ponderous treatise and fleeting pamphlet, through 
party organs and on party platforms. Day after day and 
week after week vigorously edited journals keep up a 
running fire on every weak spot of capitalism. Night after 
night on countless street-corners soap-box orators condemn 
the existing order root and branch. It is judged by its 
fruits, and its fruits are charged to be waste and wretched- 
ness and want. All is for the worst in this worst of possible 
worlds : private property and devil-take-the-hindmost have 
failed utterly to provide an abiding foundation for the 
social structure. 

Socialism in the second aspect presents an analysis of capi- 
talism. Its origin is accounted for, and its present working 
described. This analysis is undertaken with very difiFerent 

I motives according as the reigning philosophical preposses- 
sions vary. To the Utopian believer in the benevolence 
of all Nature's intentions and the preordained harmony 
of the world, it seems necessary to account for the wide 
divergence between design and reahty. To the more recent 
thinker, saturated with Hegelian or Darwinian concep- 
tions of development, scientific discussion inevitably runs 
in terms of final goal or of origins. Whatever the stand- 
point, this phase of the subject is rarely lacking in any 

i fully developed socialistic system. 

■^^ From a third view-point socialism presents a substitute 
for capitalism. More or less in detail, according as theo- 
retical or tactical exigencies necessitate, every socialist 
system forecasts the ideal cooperative commonwealth that 
is to be. The ideal of the future of course varies with the 
analysis of the present ; prescription follows diagnosis. 
But, neglecting minor variations, socialism in this aspect 
may be defined as the demand for collective ownership 
and utilization of the means of production and for distri- 



■^^ 



INTRODUCTION 8 

bution of the social dividend in accordance with some 
principle of justice. 
^ ' Finally, socialism involves a campaign against capital- 
ism. Here variation is at the maximum. The tactics 
adopted have taken many forms, peaceful persuasion and 
armed revolt, parliamentarism and syndicalism, experi- 
menting with "duodecimo editions of the New Jerusalem" 
and waiting for capitalism to dig its own grave. In each 
case the tactics in the campaign bear a necessary relation 
to the theoretical analysis consciously or unconsciously 
adopted and to the industrial and racial environment. 

In each of these aspects — i ndictment , analysis, panacea^^ 
campaign — socialism is intelligible only as the antithesis 
of the competitive system. It has followed private pro- 
perty like its shadow. In every great period of social re- 
adjustment, where in the shifting of economic foundations 
and the decay of traditional moral restraints an untram- 
meled individualism temporarily asserts itself, we find an 
inevitable socialist reaction. Since it is within the past 
century or two, the period since what is called preeni* 
inently the Industrial Revolution, that the economic 
motive has most widely dominated men's activities the 
world over, and that within the economic field the spiri^ 
of individualism has had freest play, it is within this same 
period that socialism has reached fullest and clearest de- 
velopment. Accordingly, the present discussion will be 
confined to those post-eighteenth century systems of 
socialism which alone have important significance from 
either the practical or the theoretical viewpoint. It may 
be well, however, in making a preliminary survey of the 
various socialist systems, to include a brief reference to 
some of the more characteristic of the earher develop- 
ments, chiefly to bring the later theories into clearer relief. 
It is to Greece that we owe the first of the long series 
of Utopian romances from which socialism derived much 
of its early inspiration, Plato, weary of that bare-faced 



4 SOCIALISM 

use of political power for class gain which gave Greek 
civic strife its peculiar Corcyran fury, sought refuge in 
a dream city where conflict of social and individual interest 
would be impossible. The ideal which he sketched in 
"The Republic" was an aristocratic and qualified com- 
munism. It was to be a communism for the ruling classes 
only; the lower strata, farmers, craftsmen, and slaves, 
apparently were to remain under the regime of private 
property. It was from the ruling classes alone that it was 
important to remove the temptations which the clash of 
self-interest afforded; thej' must be made true watchdogs, 
rather than wolves devouring the flock. Indeed, in one 
aspect this Platonic communism involves hardly more 
than the substitution of a paid and specialized civil serv- 
ice for government as the by-product of predatory loot.* 
It was a communism of consumption alone; the governed 
classes, by whose contributions the rulers were to be main- 
tained, continued to produce their wealth in competitive 
fashion. It was a communism of renunciation rather than^ 
of enjoyment, an "equal abrogation of material goods for 
the sake of that ideal happiness which comes from the 
fulfillment of function." ^ It was a communism — or rather 
a common renunciation, almost ascetic, of separate 
"ownership" — of wives and children as well as of goods, 
for Plato recognized more clearly than many later critics 
of society that family interest rather than individual self- 
interest is the chief motive to competitive activity. Such 
in essence was that visioned state which was destined to 
inspire countless successors, none of them, except More's 
dream, approaching their model in its literary quality and 
its piercing, if partial, insight. 

Rome contributes little either to aspiration or to agita- 
tion on socialistic lines, the so-called Agrarian Communism 
of the Gracchi being in reality a movement for redistri- 

> Barker, Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, p. 141. 
» Ibid., p. 138. 



INTRODUCTION 6 

bution of private property rather than for its abolition. 
The third great source of our modern civilization, Judea, 
is more significant. The radicalism markedly frequent in* 
the Jewish race — the race of the Marxes and Lassalles, 
as well as of the Rothschilds — finds expression in the 
prophets' denunciation of injustice and inequality, and 
in the paper provision for the Jubilee redistribution 
ascribed to Moses. The same eager sympathy with the 
losers in life's battle continues under the gospel dispensa- 
tion: the poor are exalted, the "criminal rich" denounced, 
the sharing of goods straitly enjoined, and millennial 
visions of a new kingdom of heaven on earth where social 
as well as religious wrongs should be righted gain sway. 
But nowhere did charity pass into thoroughgoing com- 
munism; and after the first flush of enthusiasm faded, 
growing worldliness repressed millennialism as heretical, 
and divorced heaven and earth. Among the Christian 
fathers we continue to find denunciations of the rich and 
of the institution of private property as violent as those of 
any Hyde Park ranter of to-day, ^ but no thought exists 
that the primitive condition of equality may be restored: 

> Cf. St. Basil: "But I ask you what is it that you call yours? From 
whom have you received it? You act like a man in a theatre, who hastens 
to seize all the seats and prevent the others from entering, keeping for 
his own use what is meant for all. How do the rich become rich, save by 
seizure of those things which belong to all? . . . The earth is given in 
common to all men. Let no man call that his own which has been taken 
in excess of his needs from a common store. . . . The bread which you 
keep back is the bread of the hungry; the garment you shut up belongs 
to the naked." — Opera, m, 492; ii, 725-26. 

St. Ambrose: "Nature has made all things common for the use of all. 
. . . Nature made common right, usurpation made private right." — 
De Offic, I, chap. 28. 

St. John Chrysostom: "The rich man is a thief." 

St. Gregory: "When we share with those who are in need, we do not 
give them what belongs to us but what belongs to them. It is not a work 
of grace but the payment of a debt." 

Quoted in Lecky, Democracy and Liberty, pp. 232 seq. and Villegardelle, 
Ilisioirc des idSes socialistes avant la revolution frangaise, pp. 71 seq. 



6 SOCIALISM 

it is meant merely to extort from the rich the ransom of 
generous alms. Gradually the monasteries segregate and 
sterilize those elements in which material self-seeking is 
weakest, or spiritual self-seeking strongest. 

Towards the close of the Middle Ages strong commun- 
istic tendencies appeared in the popular movements ex- 
cited by religious revolt and economic disorganization. 
Among Wyclif's poor priests and the Lollards, among 
Hussites and Taborites, in the Peasants' War, and the 
Anabaptist Movement, with its spectacular culmination 
in the reign of the saints in Miinster, and in the countless 
minor fanatical outbursts of the time, the vision arose of 
a perfected social order in the coming millennial kingdom. 
Religious and social aspirations were inextricably inter- 
twined.^ Sometimes the communistic doctrine or experi- 
ment was due to the leaven of early Christian influence; 
sometimes to a harking back to the primitive communism, 
then rapidly disintegrating, of the old village or mark 
imit; sometimes, as in the case of Minister's brief experi- 
ence of community of goods and legalized polygamy, to 
the abnormal pressure of a state of siege. Throughout, it 
is still a communism of the imperfect type, of consumption 
goods alone, and differs widely from modern developments 
in its mysticism and asceticism. But it marks a stage of 
advance towards the later forms in that it is an aggressive 
proletarian movement, not a passive and unpolitical 
acceptance. 

This aggressive note particularly characterizes the 
revolutionary outbursts of Lilburne and the Lev«;lers in 
the days of the Long ParUament. So far as England was 

» "The political and economic aspirations of the democracies, espe- 
cially of the German cities, called forth by the pressure of circumstances, 
readily and naturally clothed themselves in a religious or theological 
garb, whilst the religious aspirations themselves seemed to demand 
political and economic revolutions as the conditions of their fulfillment." 
— Bax, Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists, pp. 166-167. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

concerned, however, no practical movement of socialistic 
tendencies was to attain importance until centuries later. 
Her main contribution to communistic development in 
this epoch lay rather in the field of literary_romance, in 
giving to the world that vision of a perfect communistic 
commonwealth which so far surpassed its later rivals, such 
as Campanella's "City of the Sun," and Bacon's "New 
Atlantis," that it has given its name to the whole school. 
" With the * Utopia,' " declares the foremost exponent of the 
scientific socialism of to-day, "modern socialism begins."^ 
Thomas More, writing in sixteenth-century England, with 
its dawning capitalism, its agriculture rapidly being trans- 
formed from a livelihood to a profit basis, its growing 
rural proletariat dispossessed to make room for sheep, ^ 
marks a new stage. While the "Utopia" even less than 
"The Republic" is meant to convey a serious programme 
of practical reform, it is significant of the awakening forces 
that even in fancy a responsible and normally conservative 
statesman could advocate such heroic treatment for the 
evils surging about him, More's condemnation of private* 
property is out-and-out. His remedy is equally thorough- 
going, — absolute control of production by the state. The 
communism of Utopia is not a voluntary and sporadic 
development, but state-controlled and state- wide; for the 
Tudor Minister, the extension of state powers had few 
terrors. The problems which every socialist state-builder 
since has felt it his duty to solve, the problems of popula- 
tion and marriage, of hours of labor, of the use of money, 
of a possible decreased productiveness, are faced frankly 
and discussed with a quaint ingenuity and a broad human 
sympathy which have made "the golden book of Thomas 

» Kautsky, Vorldufer des neueren Sozialismus, p. 466. 

' "Your shepe that were wont to be so meke and tame and so smal 
eaters, as I heare saye, be become so great devourers and so wylde that 
they eat up and swallow doune the very men themselfes." — More, UtO' 
■pia (ed. Arber), p. 41. 



8 SOCIALISM 

More," with Plato's earlier dream, the most imperishable 
of all socialist visions. 

In the questioning time preceding the French Revolu- 
tion, the economic institutions of society did not escape 
assault. Throughout the French speculation of the eight- 
eenth century there was a steady undercurrent of protest 
against the evils of private property and of the inequality 
that followed in its train. Property was made a joint 
defendant in the indictment urged against kingcraft and 
priestcraft. On the strength of this, socialist writers have 
sometimes maintained that the revolutionary movement 
was sociaUst in its essence. Plausibility is lent this asser- 
tion by the long list of violent attacks on property and 
inequality which can be culled from almost all the writers 
of the radical movement. But taking these attacks in their 
proper proportion to the general theory of their authors, 
and allowing for the dramatic exaggeration common to 
the WTiting of the time, it seems more tenable that th? 
socialism current in eighteenth-century France was for 
the most part vague, sporadic, and far from forming a 
continuous movement or a definite school. The ambiguous 
position of Rousseau is typical in this connection. Some 
of his critics have seized on such denunciatory passages 
as the oft-quoted description of the origin of property,^ 
pregnant with evil, and forthwith have labeled him social- 
ist.^ Others, struck by the many contradictory passages 
in which he recognizes property as at worst a necessary 

> "The first man who, having enclosed a plot of ground, took thought 
to declare 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe 
him, was the real founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars and 
murders, how much misery and horror would have been spared the human 
race if some one, tearing down the pickets and filling up the ditch, had 
cried to his fellows, 'Beware of listening to that impostor: you are lost 
if you forget that the land belongs to none and its fruits to all.'" — "Dis- 
cours sur I'inegalite," fEurre.i, i, p. 551. 

2 " Jean- Jacques is undoubtedly the founder of modern communism." 
— Janet, Les Origines du socialisme contemporain, p. 1 19. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

evil, and by the moderation of his practical proposals, 
pronounce him a conservative/ While the latter judgment 
is doubtless the sounder, it must be recognized that he 
inspired an attitude of revolt and provided an arsenal of 
revolutionary phrases which served later to carry the doc- 
trine far beyond the bounds at which he himself hesitated. 
Even in the writers who are usually recognized as defin- 
itely socialistic, their speculation on economic questions 
is as a rule subordinate and incidental to the attack on 
absolutism in church and state which was the main task 
of the radical wing of eighteenth-century speculation.^ 
MesHer, cure and atheist, connecting Unk between John 
Ball and Bakounine, in that remarkable posthumous 
"Testament" in which he poured out his bitter pent-up 
hatred of all that was orthodox and powerful in his day, 
brings in his attack on the economic order as an indictment 
against the Christianity which sanctioned its abuses. 
Morelly, the most systematic and constructive of eight- 
eenth-century socialists, sets before himself "this excellent 
problem, how to find a situation in which it would be 
practically impossible for man to be wicked or depraved." * 
Concluding that private property is responsible for all 
man's ills,^ he finds the remedy in common property and 
draws up an elaborate code for regimenting all society — 
every citizen a state functionary, with education, trade, 

' " Far from being an advocate of communism, Rousseau was unable 
to conceive of society without property." — Sudre, Histoire du Commun- 
isme, p. 219. Cf. conflicting opinions in Lichtenberger, Le Socialisme au 
xviiie sieele, pp. 128 seq. 

' " Up to quite recent times social thinking and theorizing . . . may 
be called a by-product in the laboratory of the philosopher or the theo- 
logian." — Guthrie, Socialism before the French Revolution, p. 202, 

' Lichtenberger, op. cit., p. 83. 

* Code de la Nature, p. 14. 

^ "Analyse vanity, conceit, pride, ambition, fraud, hypocrisy, profli- 
gacy, even the greater number of our sophisticated virtues, and one and 
all you may resolve them into that subtle and pernicious element, the 
desire for getting and having." — Code de la Nature, p. 29. 



10 SOCIALISM 

duties, awards, all assigned him by central authority. 
Mably tries the individuahst system by the same touch- 
stone of morality, finds it wanting especially in comparison 
with the mythical Lacedemonian communistic paradise 
with which his classic researches had familiarized him, 
but, recognizing what deep roots private property had 
sunk in human nature, compromises on an attempt to 
redress the worst inequalities by taxation and limitation 
of wealth. 

At last the storm broke and outworn feudal privilege 
and abuse went by the board. But private property suc- 
ceeded in weathering the gale. The net result of the 
revolution was merely to place it on a firmer basis by 
strengthening and extending the class of small property- 
holders and lopping off the worst excrescences of privilege 
which had most stirred revolt. It was essentially a bour- 
geois movement. Yet here and there more radical spinits, 
disillusioned by the persistence of misery even with king 
beheaded and clergy and noble shorn, were forced on to 
attack, not the abuses of individual property but the 
institution itself. Of these Babeuf has been given pre- 
eminence, the preeminence of the scaffold, by his ill-fated 
attempt to carry through yet one more revolution and 
establish the rigid sawed-off equality he fanatically wor- 
shiped. It has been contended that Babeuf marks a new 
epoch in socialist development.^ Yet his theory shows 
little advance over that of his masters, Mably and Morelly, 
and his attempt at practice was not the result of any 
broad-based proletarian movement, but the more or less 

» " Babeuf, whose conspiracy must be regarded as tbe starting-point 
of the present social movement." — Meager, The Right to the Whole Pro- 
duce of Labour, p. 63. 

"Babeuf . . . was the connecting link between eighteenth-century 
political democracy and modern revolutionary socialism." — Weatherly, 
" Babeuf 's Place in the History of Socialism," Publications of American 
Economic Association, 3d ser., vol. viii, no. 1, p. 123. 



INTRODUCTION 11 

accidental outcome of the "Go to, let us make a revolu- 
tion" atmosphere of his time. 

In the wars and the triumphs of reaction which followed 
the revolution, socialist criticism and socialist aspiration 
were overborne, but only for a time. Political revolutions 
had disturbed the lethargy and the conservatism of the 
past, had given unquenchable thirst for change, and in 
the sudden and dramatic shifts of power made any change 
seem possible. The steam engine and the power loom were 
transforming the industrial structure of society, and by 
making the excesses of unregulated capitalism possible 
were making the counter-forces of socialism inevitable. 
The fabulous potencies of the new instruments of produc- 
tion quickened hopes of universal prosperity which were 
turned to bitter gall by the realization of the waste and 
oppression and exploitation attendant on the competitive 
system. 

The leaders of the new movement which arose had them- 
selves personal knowledge of the new forces: Owen, cap- 
tain of industry, with the prestige of pecuniary success and 
philanthropic endeavor behind him; Fourier, "sergent de 
boutique," as he called himself, trained in trade as Owen 
in manufacture, and analyzing its wastes with the insight 
of his Poe-like imagination and the bias of his systematic 
"rectangular" temperament; Saint-Simon, scion of Charle- 
magne, but the unsparing foe of hereditary pretensions, 
prophet of a new order where industrial capacity would 
have highest honor and eflBciency be secured by scientific 
organization of society's scattered forces. They were all 
men in deadly earnest, they and their schools and their 
fellows; dreamers indeed, possessed by vague, intangible, 
large-horizoned ideals of humanity's perfection, but re- 
solved to make the dreaming come true, to preach the 
new gospel to the old world till all men should accept. 
They strike a note of seriousness not found in Mably or 
Morelly: socialism passes definitely from the dilettante 



12 SOCIALISM 

stage to the crank stage. One and all the leaders of this 
school were men of contagious enthusiasm and unbounded 
self-confidence, well content to suffer neglect and obloquy 
to-day, to be hailed savior of society to-morrow. 

In their analysis of the system against which they 
raised their protests, these Utopian socialists shared the 
unhistorical attitude of the eighteenth-century radicals, and 
their ascription of all evil to the knavery or ignorance of the 
barbarian past. In their panaceas there was wide variance 
from the most rigid state control to the most implicit 
reliance on voluntary cooperation, but this in common, 
that each beUeved salvation lay in the discovery of the 
perfect social order God or Nature had designed, and that 
each worked out in naive detail an ideal commonwealth, 
based on the discovered principle, which might forthwith 
be set up and forever be enjoyed. In their camipaign 
against capitalism they appealed notJ.Q_a single class but 
to all men as brothers, appealed to their intelligence, theii- 
sense of justice, their enlightened common interest, seeking 
by incessant preaching and writing of the word and by 
estabUshing experimental colonies to bring them to the 
faith. Keenly critical, ingeniously suggestive, contagiously 
enthusiastic, they played no unimportant part in making 
men reaUze there was a social question to be solved. But 
their own direct attempts at solution came to nothing. 
One school after another flashed into popularity, only to 
disappear as rapidly, and make way for still another type 
of socialist thought. In France Proudhon and Louis Blanc 
marked the transition from Utopian to scientific socialism, 
Proudhon contributing to the analysis of capitalism his 
theory of property as the right of aubaine, stressing the 
desirability of democratizing credit, and developing the 
optimistic anarchism implicit in many of his Utopian 
forerunners, and Blanc on the other hand dwelling with 
Saint-Simon on the necessity for the organization of labor, 
exalting the role the state was to play and groping toward 



INTRODUCTION 13 

making socialism a political and proletarian movement. 
But in the main France lost its primacy in the socialist 
development; the torch passed across the Rhine. 

Karl Marx is the greatest name on the roll of socialism. ^ 
For half a century his theories have been the intellectual 
backbone of the movement, and whatever modifications 
and more or less ingenuous re-interpretations they have 
undergone these later days, it is still his personality which 
dominates the minds of millions of his fellow men. Marx 
was admirably equipped for his mission; more justly even 
than Lassalle he could claim to be "fortified with all the 
culture of his century." The most diverse influences went 
to his mental shaping. Hegelian philosophy modified by 
Feuerbach's materialism gave him his outlook on life. 
His rabbinical ancestry — he was of the house of Mordecai 
— strengthened the tendency to scholastic hair-splitting. 
The political unrest of Germany and France in the forties 
gave him a revolutionary bias. The socialist sentiment, 
still strong in Paris in the days of his exile there, made his 
revolutionism social rather than political. The concrete 
developments of capitalism in England, where the latter 
half of his life was passed, gave him the key to the future 
trend of economic organization, and plentiful ammunition 
for criticism. In the theories of English classical econom- 
ists he found doctrines easily twisted into condemnations 
of the existing order, while the English utilitarian philo- 
sophy materially modified his original neo-Hegelian out- 
look. Such a cosmopolitan training was eminently fitted 
to shape a leader of a cosmopolitan movement. 

The service of Marx to his cause, his followers claim, was 

> "The socialism that inspires hopes and fears to-day is of the school 
of Marx. No one is seriously apprehensive of any other so-called social- 
istic movement. . . . The socialists of all countries gravitate toward 
the theoretical position of avowed Marxism. In proportion as the move- 
ment in any given community grows in mass, maturity, and conscious 
purpose, it unavoidably takes on a more consistently Marxian com- 
plexion." — Veblen, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xxi, p. 299. 



14 SOCIALISM 

to make socialism scientific, inevitable, proletarian, aggress- 
ive, international. He made it scientific^ by an analysis 
which laid bare all history as the record of the war of 
class against class, and traced capitalist exploitation to its 
source in surplus value. He nia^eMt_app_eiLt inevitable, 
no longer » mej-e personal fantasy, a dreamed Ut«pia to 
strive for or t0*"build by plan and specification, but the 
certain next step in social progress, the outcome of forces 
immanent in the existing industrial order. He made it 
proletarian, uniting the socialist ideals of the middle-class 
dreamers of the previous generation and the practical 
aspirations of the working classes, newly feehng their 
grievances and their power. He made it aggressive, ap- 
peahng not to the idealism and the justice of the few, 
but to the hunger of the many. He made it international, 
declaring that the lines of division should no more fall 
between nation and nation but between class and class, be- 
tween international capital and international labor. "Let 
the masters tremble at the coming of the Communist revolu- 
tion. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains; 
they have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite ! " 
f Marx's clarion call has been answered. Millions of the 
workers of the world march under the banners he and his 
fellow leaders have unfurled. Marx himself, it is true, 
deficient in constructive ability and political tact, counted 
for little directly in marshaling the hosts. But other 
leaders have risen to carry on the work, from Lassalle, 
most spectacular of agitators, to Liebknecht and Bebel, 
patient, unwearied tacticians ; Auer and Singer, masters 
of organization ; Guesde, tenacious of the faith committed ; 
and Jaures, prince of opportunists ; Hyndman, uncompro- 
mising in his orthodoxy ; Anseele, exponent of socialism in 
the cooperative ; and Vandervelde its exponent in Parlia- 
ment; Turati and Ferri, the intelleduel leaders of the 
Italian movement — these and countless others, preaching 
undiluted Marxism or in some measure continuing the 



INTRODUCTION 15 

Utopian or Proudhon tradition, or making Fabian com- 
promises with necessity, have given voice to the discontent 
of uneasy Europe. Socialism, which a generation or two 
ago was despised by the world as the creed of a handful 
of fantastic dreamers or of obscure bands of conspirators 
with a mania for issuing manifestoes, to-day stands out 
as the most remarkable international political movement 
in history, commanding the adherence of eight million 
voters, representing every civilized country under the sun. 
The success attained by this socialist propaganda has 
been in large measure the outcome of the changes in in- 
dustrial structure which marked the past century. The 
growth of a large and compact wage-earning class, shut 
out for the most part from the probability of individual 
control of the ever huger and more costly instruments of 
production, made inevitable movements to gain for the 
workers an effective share in the control of industry. Most 
successful among these movements have been the attempts, 
based on the continued acceptance of private ownership, 
to secure an effective voice in determining the conditions 
of employment, by trade-union organization and by legis- 
lative regulation. More ambitious was the project, 
awakening in the earlier days intense enthusiasm and 
glowing anticipation, of abolishing the capitalist by estab- 
lishing workmen's productive cooperative societies. But 
far and away most dazzling was the ideal of communal 
and national ownership and control of all the means of 
production, making workers and owners one throughout 
the whole field of industry. For over half a century it has 
been the aim of socialism to arouse the discontent of the 
working classes to the pitch where no less pretentious 
panacea, no mere betterments of the existing order, would 
be accepted. It is our first task to examine the indictment 
urged to this end. 



CHAPTER II 

THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 

It is in their indictment of the existing order that socialists 
are most in harmony. Theorists who are poles apart in the 
remedies or the tactics they propose join forces in ana- 
thematizing the common enemy. There is, of course, wide 
variation in the relative emphasis laid on the different 
counts, a variation corresponding to some extent to the 
differences in the analytical viewpoints adopted: to one 
school the parasitical middleman is the worst offender, 
to another the exploiting capitalist; to one the anarchy 
of production is the rock of offense, to another the unfair- 
ness of distribution; the moralist bemoans the low ethical 
standards of a competitive society, and the artist the 
hideousness of its products. But the ammunition is freely 
exchanged; whatever the main charge be, the more ills 
that can be laid at the door of competition and private 
property the better. So the twentieth -century socialist 
repeats the fiery denunciations of John Ball, and Morris 
and Marx find common ground. 

The success of socialist agitation depends not merely on 
the existence of serious industrial evils, but on the readi- 
ness of the masses of men to hearken to a gospel of dis- 
content. Before reviewing the objective facts of modern 
industrial life against which criticism is directed, it is 
advisable to consider the subjective factor. However 
black the ills that are charged against capitalism, few 
socialists will contend that misery and oppression are new 
in the world. To understand why a fiercer resentment, a 
wider revolt prevails to-day than ever before in history, 
it is necessary first to glance at the psychology of modern 
social unrest. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 17 

Not least important among the causes of the increasing 
discontent is the betterment in the condition of the masses. 
Spencer has called attention to the curious paradox that 
frequently "the more things improve the louder become 
exclamations about their badness."^ When women bore 
the heavy burdens and received what food was left after 
their lords and masters had eaten, there was little outcry 
as to the rights of women; to-day, when they have been 
given all but equal privileges, their grievances are pro- 
claimed from the housetops. A century ago, when drunken- 
ness was normal and the man who could not take his one 
or two bottles of wine was held a milksop, there was little 
agitation against the evils of drink; but to-day, when more 
exacting industrial demands and temperance propaganda 
have produced comparative sobriety, the prohibition 
movement sweeps whole states. So with the condition of 
the average workingman of to-day as compared with that 
of his ancestors. It is beyond question that wages are 
higher, hours are shorter, housing is better, the death-rate 
lower. The state and private and institutional philan- 
thropy have been active to unparalleled degree in provid- 
ing for him free education, free museums, free parks. Yet 
all these betterments have merely served to whet the ap- 
petite for more, to nourish the spirit of resistance, to foster 
a "divine discontent." The hopelessness of utter poverty 
and ignorance crushes; a half advance rouses fierce de- 
mand. 

At the same time that ambition is stirred, the goal tanta- 
lizingly recedes into the distance. Not merely is demand 
stiffened; its scope is immensely widened. The higher 
pedestal has opened new horizons: heavens undreamed 
of have been glimpsed. The growth of your wants out- 
foots the growth of your ability to supply them. A smaller 
proportion of your demand is effectual, as the economists 
remark. For your standard is set, not by your outgrown 
* A Plea for Liberty, p. 1. 



18 SOCIALISM 

self, nor by your ancestor dead and gone, but by the more 
fortunate about you. The optimist may remind you that 
one born in your station of Ufe a century ago, or in that 
poorer land from which you emigrated, would have 
thanked God humbly for meat once a week; that not many 
centuries ago cotton was a luxury reserved by law for 
countesses, or that Plantagenet kings slept on rushes and 
dined by the light of a tallow dip. To no purpose: it mat- 
ters little that your great-grandfather walked shoeless, 
while you walk shod; it matters much that you walk, 
while your neighbor whizzes by in his ninety -horse-power 
car, or casts upon you the shadow of his aeroplane.* 
Standards have advanced faster than incomes. The luxu- 
ries of yesterday become to-day's necessities. More and 
more, home services and preparations are replaced by the 
tempting but expensive conveniences of the open market. 
Speed and up-to-dateness must be had at any cost. 

Democracy sharpens the sting of economic inequality. 
Equal votes suggest equal purses. By a taking analogy in- 
dustrial democracy appeals as the inevitable complement 
of political democracy. Plutocratic prejudices against the 
ability of the people to govern themselves in the matter of 
making a living must go the way of outworn aristocratic 
prejudices against the people's ability to govern themselves 
in affairs of state. When men are born and work and die 
within the limits of caste, and are trained to pray Pro- 
vidence to keep them in their proper stations and bless the 

> "What possible uneasiness was it to the workingman, before the 
discovery of America, that there was no tobacco to be had? or before 
the era of printing, that no desirable book could be got? All human 
hardships and sorrows depend, then, only upon the proportion of the 
means of contentment to the, at the time, present wants and customs of 
life. We measure our sorrows and hardships, our contentment and bless- 
ings, by the conditions of other classes at the period. It is because, at 
different periods of progress, added wants have sprung into existence, 
bringing desires formerly unknown into demand, that sorrows and hard- 
ships appeared." — Lassalle, O'pen Letter, pp. 22-23 (translated by Eb 
mann and Bader). Cf. Le Bon, Psychology of Socialism, p. 12. 



i 



i 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 19 

Squire and his relations, it is only the few hardiest spirits 
who dream of questioning the justice of their lot. But 
when the barriers of caste are down, and democratic theory 
teaches that every man is as good as his neighbor, then 
the case is altered. It may well be that the gap between 
modern millionaire and tenement dweller is less than the 
gap between medieval lord and peasant, but the peasant 
did not compare himself with his lord. 

At the same time the old ties which had enforced content 
have weakened. In Europe the Church has long been the 
bulwark of Things as They Are. The teaching of Jesus as 
to the future life has not rarely been perverted into a con- 
solation offer for the losers in this world's race.* Let Laza- 
rus content himself with the crumbs from Dives' table in 
this brief second we call Time, and through Eternity he 
shall inherit pearly mansions, and may look down on 
Dives vainly striving to enter the needle's eye or writhing 
in hell-fire. Lassalle's gibe about payment by checks on 
the Bank of Heaven had enough truth in it to hurt. The 
Church to-day is reawakening to her social duty, but the 
harm has been done. 

The massing of men in great cities, subject to the social- 

« A clerical opponent of socialism, seeking to lay the responsibility for 
its growth on "liberalism" and "extreme Darwinism," declares: "If it 
is once admitted that all ends with this life . . . who can require of the 
poor and oppressed, whose life is a continued struggle for existence, that 
they bear their hard lot with patience and resignation and look on with 
indifference while their neighbors are clad in purple and fine linen, and 
daily revel at sumptuous banquets? ... If you despoil him of every 
hope of a better life to come, what right have you to prevent him from 
striving to obtain happiness on earth as best he can, and therefore to 
make imperative demands for his share of earthly goods? ... If the 
atheistic and materialistic theory is true, the demands of socialism are 
certainly just — that all the goods and enjoyments of this life should 
be equally divided among all; that it is therefore unjust that one should 
live in a magnificent palace and enjoy all pleasures without labor, while 
another is living in a squalid cellar or cold garret, and cannot, even with 
the greatest effort, obtain enough bread to appease his hunger." — Victor 
Cathrein, S.J., Sociaiism, translated by Gettlemann, pp. 224-225. 



20 SOCIALISM 

izing influence of the factory and the amusement-park, 
tends in the same direction. The isolated farmer or the 
artisan in his self-sufficient, impervious village group 
clings tenaciously to an individualist ideal. The tenement 
dweller or the mine worker, cut loose from his native 
environment, acted on every hour by socializing influences, 
turns more readily to socialism. When Christianity was 
a revolutionary gospel it made its appeal to the city pro- 
letariat, not to the "pagans." 

More subtle and pervasive is the effect ascribed to 
machine industry itself.' Professor Veblen assigns to the 
machine process a disciplinary and selective effect on the 
habits of thought of the workmen closest in touch with it. 
Their reasoning comes to run in terms, not of anthropo- 
morphism and conventional precedent, but of "opaque, 
impersonal cause and effect." ^ Arguments based on 
authenticity and usage or even on the once revolutionary 
basis of natural rights cease to have meaning. Especially 
does the "natural rights institution of property" fall into 
disfavor. Socialism, voicing this attitude, differs herein 
from previous expressions of popular discontent which 
aimed merely at a more equitable distribution of property 
rights, not at their abolition — though it is admitted that 
with most early socialists and with the neophytes of to-day 
the claim to the full product of labor has carried most 
weight. Without pressing the point unduly, it seems un- 
deniable that it is only among the industrial classes of the 
industrial nations that socialism has won wide adherence. 
Men engaged in pecuniary rather than in industrial 
employments, though equally propertyless, are immune.' 

1 Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise, chap, ix, "The Cultural In- 
cidence of the Machine Process," passim. 

» Ibid., p. 310. 

' "Instead of contrasting the well-to-do with the indigent, the line 
of demarcation between those available for the socialist propaganda and 
those not so available is rather to be drawn between the classes employed 
in the industrial and those employed in the pecuniary occupations. It is 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 21 

The miracles of nineteenth-century science have helped 
to accustom men's minds to schemes of revolutionary 
change. We have mastered nature, have weighed the sun 
and flashed messages across the ocean, have harnessed 
steam and electricity to do our bidding, and shrunk the 
huge earth's circumference to a forty-day Cook's tour. 
To optimistic minds it seems but child's play, compared 
with such achievements, to alter the economic system 
under which we live. 

Finally it may be noted what facilities for propaganda 
have been created by the new mobility of labor, the ease 
of transportation, the rise of the popular press. The bar- 
riers which a few centuries ago made it possible to isolate 
a radical force, have broken down; now all the world 's 
the stage. Criticism has proved a commercial success : the 
press prefers ten proletarian coppers to one plutocratic 
nickel. The fierce yellow light that beats upon a multi- 
millionaire keeps the sins of wealth ever before us. 

Thus socialism has found the ground ready for the seed 
of discontent. What seed has been sown? what are the 
chief counts in the indictment brought against capitalism? 

a question not so much of possessions as of employments; not of relative 
wealth, but of work. . . . The socialistic disaffection shows a curious 
tendency to overrun certain classes and to miss certain others. The men 
in the skilled mechanical trades are peculiarly liable to it, while at the 
extreme of immunity is probably the profession of the law. Bankers and 
other like classes of business men, together with clergymen and politi- 
cians, are also to be held free of serious aspersion; similarly the great 
body of the rural population are immune, including the population of the 
country towns and in an eminent degree the small farmers of the remoter 
country districts; so also the delinquent classes of the cities and the 
populace of half-civilized and barbarous countries. . . . The unproper- 
tied classes employed in business do not take to socialistic vagaries . . . 
[but] to some incursion into pragmatic romance, such as Social Settle- 
ments, Prohibition, Clean Politics, Single Tax, Arts and Crafts, Neigh- 
borhood Guilds, Institutional Church, Christian Science, New Thought, 
or some such cultural thimblerig." — Veblen, Theory of Business Entet' 
prise, pp. 848-349, 351, note. 



aa SOCIALISM 

Applying first the touchstone of efficiency in the pro- 
duction of material goods, it is charged that the com- 
petitive system has lamentably failed. The provision of 
society's requirements as a by-product of individual self- 
seeking has broken down. Private profit is far from co- 
inciding with social gain. One of the most objective and 
clear-sighted observers of present-day economic life thus 
summarizes a part of his investigation: "The outcome of 
this recital, then, is that wherever and in so far as business 
ends and methods dominate modern industry, the relation 
between the usefulness of the work (for other purposes 
than pecuniary gain) and the remuneration of it is remote 
and uncertain to such a degree that no attempt at formu- 
lating such a relation is worth while. . . . Work that is, 
on the whole, useless or detrimental to the community at 
large may be as gainful to the business man and to the 
workmen w^hom he employs as work that contributes sub- 
stantially to the aggregate livelihood."^ 

In the first place, it is charged, laissez-faire breaks down 
in that wide range of cases where utilities of undeniable 
importance are not provided because incapable of private 
appropriation and sale. The importance of forest preserva- 
tion for conserving moisture is undeniable. But climate 
and rainfall cannot be packaged and trafficked in, and so 
our forests are swept down by axe and fire.^ A lighthouse 
might be absolutely essential on some dangerous promon- 
tory, but profit-making enterprise \^ould halt if circum- 
stances made it impossible to collect a toll from benefited 
ships. 

» Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise, p. 63. 

a "We are complete savages in the management of water and forests. 
. . . We do not confine ourselves to leaving them uncultivated and in 
their primitive state; we bring the axe and destruction, and the result is 
landslides, the denuding of mountain-sides, and the deterioration of the 
climate. . . . How our descendants will curse civnlization, on seeing so 
many mountains despoiled and laid bare!" — Fourier, ThSoriede VUniti 
Universelle, 1838, iii, 478, in Gide's Selectiong from Fourier, translated by 
Franklin, p. 109. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 23 

Even more serious is the loss entailed when the lure of 
profit attracts too large, rather than too small, a propor- 
tion of the community's working forces into particular 
channels. Conservative trust apologists have helped 
radical socialist critics to make the wastes of competition 
a commonplace in our thinking. The middleman is again 
under suspicion, as in the days when forestallers, engross- 
ers, and regraters troubled the common weal. Within the 
classical school itself, Adam Smith's sweeping optimism^ 
is balanced by Mill's admission^ that competition may 
result not in price-cutting but in a war for a share of busi- 
ness on a fixed price level. Fourier particularly has de- 
nounced its wastefulness with a force and frequency not 
surpassed among later socialists. "We are," he declares, 
"as far as regards the industrial mechanism, as raw as a 
people who should ignore the use of mills and employ fifty 
laborers to grind grain which is to-day crushed by a 
single millstone. The superfluity of agents is frightful 
everywhere, and generally amounts to four times what is 
necessary in all commercial employments." ^ The contrast 
between the planless distribution of milk by a score of 
competing dealers serving a single street, and the sys- 
tematic distribution of mail by a central authority, has 
grown hoary in socialist service.^ Especially in the field 

' "The prejudices of some political writers against shopkeepers and 
tradesmen are altogether without foundation. . . . They can never be 
multiplied so as to hurt the public, though they may so as to hurt one 
another." — Wealth of Nations, bk. ii, chap. 5, i, pp. 366-367, Bohn. 

« " Competition has no other effect than to share the sum total among 
a larger number, and thus diminish the portion of each, rather than to 
lower the relative part obtained by this class in general." — Evidence, 
House of Commons Commission, June 6, 1850. 

' Fourier, Theorie des Quatre Mouvements, pp. 373-377, in Gide, Selec- 
tions, p. 104. 

* "See how private enterprise supplies the street with milk. At 7.30 
a milk-cart comes along and delivers milk at one house, and away again. 
Half an hour later another milk-cart arrives and delivers milk first on 
this side of the street, and then on that, until seven houses have been 



84 SOCIALISM 

of public utilities, where increasing returns are the rule, 
the waste of competition is obvious — in parallel railroads, 
competing gas-companies, duplicated electric light or 
power plants. 

Competitive selling-costs bulk very large in the "cost 
of production" of all commodities. This is clearest in the 
case of advertising. To a varying extent modern adver- 
tising is doubtless informative, guiding and stimulating 
the wants of customers. But for the most part it is merely 
competitive, catering to existing wants. ^ Such advertis- 
ing "does not add to the serviceability of the output, 
unless it be incidentally and unintentionally. ... It gives 
vendibility, which is useful to the seller, but has no utility 
to the last buyer." ^ Conservative economists estimate this 
waste at half the selling-price in many lines, ^ In great part 
the work of oflBce force and field force is equally void of 
social utility. Nor is the waste ended when the deal is 
closed : the Chicago manufacturer may have sold his goods 
in New York, and the New York manufacturer in Chicago, 

supplied, and he departs. During the next three hours four other milk- 
carts put in an appearance at varying intervals, supplying a house here 
and another there, until at last, as it draws towards noon, their task is 
done and the street is supplied with milk." — Elihu, Milk and Postage 
Stamps, I. L. P. tract. t 

^ "The Hatter in the Strand of London, instead of making better felt 
hats than another, mounts a huge lath-and-plaster Hat, seven feet high, 
upon wheels, sends a man to drive it through the streets, hoping to be 
saved thereby. He has not attempted to make better hats, as he was 
appointed by the Universe to do, and as with this ingenuity of his he 
could probably have done; but his whole industry is turned to persvade 
us that he has made such. He too knows that the Quack has become 
God." — Carlyle, Past and Present, p. 122. 

" Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise, p. 59. 

3 "Such expense of advertising must, of course, add greatly to the 
cost of the goods to the consumer. It is probably not too much to say 
that in many lines it would be possible, if competitive advertising were 
rendered unnecessary, to furnish as good quality of goods to the consum- 
ers, permit them to pick their brands, and charge them only one half the 
prices paid at present, while still leaving to the manufacturer a profit no 
leas great than that now received." — Jenks, The Trust Problem, p. 29l 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 95 

so that the item of cross-freights, serious in bulky wares, 
is still to be reckoned. For further details of competitive 
waste, we have only to consult the latest trust prospectus. 

Nowhere, the indictment continues, does capitalism 
break down more conspicuously than in the equilibration 
of demand and supply. Production in competitive society 
is planless and anarchical. Haphazardly scattered pro- 
ducers prepare to meet the guessed-at demands of world- 
wide consumers. The adjustment is never exact. At times 
it fails utterly, in the periodical crises which throw the 
industrial mechanism hopelessly out of gear. "Commerce 
is at a standstill, the markets are glutted, hard cash dis- 
appears, factories are closed, the mass of the workers are 
in want of the means of subsistence." ^ 

The case for competition is no more favorable when we 
turn from quantity to quality of products. "Adulteration 
is a form of competition," was the frank apology offered 
by John Bright. The advance of science and original sin 
have made it possible to counterfeit almost every article 
of common household use, the more easily because of the 
lack of experience of the final purchaser.^ Even in Tenny- 
son's day "chalk and alum and plaster were sold to the 
poor for bread," and the wooden nutmeg had rechristened 
a state. But the amateur and unsophisticated efforts of 
half a century ago pale before the accomplishments of 
to-day, — the red raspberry jam which once was gelatin, 
aniline, and timothy seed ; the prune-juice and fusel oil 
masquerading as whiskey ; the chicory in the coffee and the 
pea-hulls in the chicory ; the artificial oils in the flavoring- 

» Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, translated by Aveling, p. 
64. 

" "The dilution and adulteration of food-products is a particularly 
easy path to profit because the ultimate purchaser has almost no power 
and very little intelligence. . . . Woman brings to her selection from the 
world's foods only the empirical experience gained by practicing upon 
her helpless family." — Charlotte P. Stetson (Gilman), Women and Ecch 
nomics, pp. 227-229. 



£6 SOCIALISM 

extracts; the labels we drink at champagne prices; the 
shoddy we are clothed in and the paper soles we walk on; 
the "Corot" on our walls with its paint scarce dry.^ 

Nor is it only in the selling of commodities that this 
fraud is charged. "The genius of graft," declares a social- 
ist satire, "manifests itself in nearly all branches of human 
activity. Wherever something can be got for nothing, 
wherever a pinch or a squeeze of extra profit can be made 
in a transaction, wherever falsehood can be made to do 
duty for truth, a pretense for accomplishment or service, 
there is observed a metamorphosis of the protean genius of 
Graft" — the petty graft of the hackman or waiter, of the 
loan shark or the quack physician or the shyster lawyer, 
of the fake installment trade or diploma factory. ^ 

Even where the quality of the wares is honest enough, 
they have lost all semblance of art or seemliness. The 
craftsman's pride in his work has given place to the profit- 
monger's preoccupation with his ledger. The jeremiads 
of Ruskin and Morris on the lack of beauty and simple 
honest}' in the goods of commerce are familiar. The same 
charge is brought against the stores where the wares are 
offered, "distorted, compressed to the narrowest, with no 
space for effect, with none to ofiFer were there space to per- 
ceive it, with every line cut short at the end of its money- 
making power; with its tawdry best face forward, with no 
sides at all, and an unspeakable rear; with no regard what- 

> Cf. Ghent, Mass and Class, p. 202. 

« "The recent investigation and published report of the Charity 
Organization Society of New York City on the consumption-cure graft 
was thought by many persons to be the prelude to the complete annihi- 
lation of this swindle. These expectations have not been fulfilled. With 
that sublime audacity, energy, ingenuity, and initiative which our 
ethical teachers and economists tell us always bring their rightful reward 
under the competitive system, these therapists have extracted from thp 
Charity Report the denunciatory passages, transformed them into com- 
mendations, and sown them broadcast. As a consequence the curer of 
consumption still sits at the receipt of custom, and enjoys the fruits 
of his superior abilities." — Ibid., pp. 212-213. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 87 

ever for harmony with its neighbors; ugUness and selfish- 
ness, the UgUness of systematized selfishness." ^ 

Financial fraud is rated more serious even than com- 
mercial. As credit and corporations count for more and 
more, the openings for manipulation widen. The way is 
clear for promotion, running the gamut from the down- 
right swindle of the cent-a-share mining company to the 
honest graft of respectable over-capitalization. The com- 
pany once formed, the divergence of interest between 
director and shareholder, temporary controller and per- 
manent owner, tempts to all the thousand and one devices 
of manipulation. "Under the regime of the old-fashioned 
'money economy,' with partnership methods and private 
ownership of industrial enterprises, the discretionary con- 
trol of the industrial processes is in the hands of men 
whose interest in the industry is removed by one degree 
from the interests of the community at large. But under 
the regime of the more adequately developed 'credit 
economy,' with vendible corporate capital, the interest 
of the men who hold the discretion in industrial affairs 
is removed by one degree from that of the concerns under 
their management, and by two degrees from the interests 
of the community at large. The business interests of the 
managers demand not serviceability of the output, nor 
even vendibility of the output, but an advantageous dis- 
crepancy in the price of the capital which they manage . . . 
a discrepancy between the actual and the putative earning- 
capacity." ^ Testimony to the same effect is borne more 
specifically by the leading English financial authority, 
"The Economist," which declares its "conviction, founded 
upon long and bitter experience, that the small coterie 
of capitalists who control the railways of the United States 
look upon the investor as a mere pawn in the game they 
are playing for their own enrichment." 

* Reeve, Cost of Competition, p. 492. 
» Veblen, op. cit., pp. 158-159. 



28 SOCIALISM 

The specific counts in this indictment of frenzied finance 
are beyond possibility of record.^ Fresh in memory are 
that "artistic swmdle,"^ the looting of the United States 
Shipbuilding Company; the floating of the Asphalt Com- 
pany of America, "a story of financial fraud and rotten- 
ness";^ the "crime of Amalgamated" and other exploits 
of "the hellish System" — "in itself a stark and palpable 
fraud, but aggravated by the standing of the men con- 
cerned in it, and pledges that were slaughtered, into as 
arrant and damnable a piece of financial villainy as was 
ever committed";* the Chicago and Alton reorganization, 
the insurance scandals, the New York street-railway loot- 
ing, the recent banking exploits of copper magnates and 
ice magnates. And the other deeds of the kings of finance, 
are they not written in the books of the muck-rakers and 
in presidential messages? "There has been in the past 
grave wrong done innocent stockholders," declared Pre- 
sident Roosevelt, "by over-capitalization, stock-watering, 
stock- jobbing, stock-manipulation. . . . The man who 
makes an enormous fortune by corrupting legislatures 
and municipalities, and fleecing his stockholders and the 
public, stands on the same moral level with the creature 
who fattens on the blood-money of the gambling-house and 
the saloon. . . . The rebate-taker, the franchise traf- 



* " In 1720 there was printed for W. Bonham, in London, ' an argument 
proving that the South Sea Company is able to make a dividend of 38 
per cent for twelve years, fitted to the meanest capacities.' This was 
one of the first prospectuses ever issued, and the succession has been 
worthy of its ancestor: Spanish Jackass Company, Louisiana Bubble, 
South American Bonds, American Improvement Bonds, English Rail- 
ways, American Railways, American Mines, South American Railways, 
Australian Railways, Rand Mines, American Industrials — John Law, 
Hudson, Barnato, Hooley, Gates, and Lawson. The line runs true. The 
Jackass Company still lives." — Meade, Trust Finance, pp. 136-137. 

« Receiver's Report, cited in Ripley, Trusts, Pools, and Corporations, 
p. 201. 

» Ripley, Ibid., p. 229. 

* Lawson, Frenzied Finance, p. 370. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 29 

fickcT, the manipulator of securities, the purveyor and 
protector of vice, the blackmailing ward boss, the ballot- 
box stuffer, the demagogue, the mob leader, the hired 
bully and man-killer, — all alike work at the same web of 

corruption, and all alike should be abhorred by honest 

" 1 
men. '■ 

So much for the efficiency of the competitive system 
as a means of producing the greatest possible amount of 
useful material goods. Rated even in terms of goods and 
gear it is condemned. What is the loss and gain computed 
in terms of human life, what the conditions under which 
the mass of men labor to produce this wealth, what their 
share in the product and the consequent measure of ma- 
terial comfort and well-being attainable? Here the indict- 
ment becomes more serious and more passionate. For the 
vast majority, it is urged, competition and capitalism 
spell misery and failure, a precarious lifelong battle with 
hunger, stunted and narrowed development, premature 
death or cheerless old age. Long ago in Merrie England 
John Ball preached the contrast between lord and peasant, 
oppressor and oppressed: "Ah, ye good people, the matter 
goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do till 
everything be in common, and that there be no villeins nor 
gentlemen, but that we may be all united together, and 
that the lords be no greater masters than we be. What have 
we deserved, or why should we be kept thus in servage? 
We be all come from one father and one mother, Adam 
and Eve — whereby can they say or show that they be 
greater lords than we be, saving that they cause us to 
labor to bring forth what they consume? They are clothed 
in velvet and furs; we are dressed in poor clothes. They 
have their wine, spices, and good bread, and we have oat- 
cake and straw, and water to drink. They dwell in fair 
houses, and we have the pain and the toil, rain and winds 
in the fields. By the produce of our labor they keep and 
> Special Message to Congress, January 31, 1908. 



'80 SOCIALISM 

maintain their estates. We be called their bondmen, and 
without we readily do their will we be beaten." ^ And to- 
day, after five centuries of progress in civilization, with 
political freedom secured and the industrial system revo- 
lutionized, a calm observer can pass this damning verdict : 
"To me, at least, it would be enough to condemn modern 
society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if the 
permanent condition of industry were to be that which 
we behold, that ninety per cent of the actual producers 
of wealth have no home that they can call their own be- 
yond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much 
as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of 
any kind except as much old furniture as will go in a cart ; 
have the precarious chance of weekly wages which barely 
sufiice to keep them in health ; are housed for the most part 
in places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are separated 
by so narrow a margin from destitution that a month of 
bad trade, sickness, or unexpected loss brings them face 
to face with hunger and pauperism."^ 

Considering first the conditions under which men earn 
their living, the socialist finds the majority sunk in "wage 
slavery." The capitalist's control of all the opportunities 
of labor gives him power more tyrannous than the slave- 
owner of old ever held. No legal bond compels the modern 
workman to labor for his masters, but the monopoly of 
the means of livelihood is stronger than any parchment 
right. The main difference between the old and the new 
slavery is that the modern slave-driver is under no obliga- 
tion to keep his "hands" from starving. It is for the 
capitalist, and the capitalist alone, to decide when and 
where work shall be begun, who shall and shall not be 
employed, what the manner of working shall be. "The 
workman," declares Keir Hardie, "is finding out that he 

« Froissart, Chronicles, chap. 381. 

« Frederic Harrison, Report of Industrial Remuneration ConferencCt 
p. 429. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 31 

has but exchanged one form of serfdom for another and 
that the necessity of hunger is an even more cruel scourge 
than was the thong of the Roman taskmaster. ... He 
has no right to employment, no one is under obligation 
to find him work, nor is he free to work for himself, since 
he has neither the use of land nor the command of the 
necessary capital. He must be more or less of a nomad, 
ready to go at a moment's notice to where a job is vacant. 
He may be starving but may not grow food, naked but 
may not weave cloth; homeless but may not build a home. 
When in work he has little if any say in the regulations 
which govern the factory, and none in deciding what 
work is to be done or how it is to be done. His duty begins 
and ends in doing as he is bid. To talk to a neighbor 
workman at the bench is an offense punishable by a fine; 
so, too, in some cases is whistling while at work. At a 
given hour in the morning the factory bell warns him that 
it is time to be inside the gate ready for the machines to 
start; at a set hour the bell or hooter calls him out to din- 
ner and again recalls him to his task one hour later. He 
does not own the machines he manipulates, nor does he 
own the product of his labor. He is a hireling, and glad 
to be any man's hireling who will find him work." ^ 

It is not only from lack of freedom that the modern 
workman suffers. The work which he does at another's 
bidding is drearily monotonous work. The factory system 
means for the average workman cramping and dispiriting 
routine, a pitifully limited horizon, the repression of all 
latent power not needed for the mechanical day's work. 
Individuality is sacrificed on the altar of efficient produc- 
tion. "The absorption of the whole working power of 
large classes by an ever minuter division of labor, unless 
balanced by increased freedom and leisure, tends to de- 
grade the character of the worker, to injure the all-round 
development of his nature, and thereby to impair his 
« From Serfdom to Socialism, pp. 76, 62-53. 



82 SOCIALISM 

facilities of enjoyment and non-industrial use. The dom- 
inance of specialized routine impresses the character of 
machine work upon the life, robs it of those elements 
of individuality and spontaneity which make existence 
rational and enjoyable."^ 

The factory system not only robs the workman of free- 
dom and of interest in his task, the arraignment continues, 
but subjects him to exhausting and dangerous toil. The 
long hours which the greed for dividends wrings from 
the workers use up every ounce of vitality, prevent that 
rounded development which can come only with moderate 
leisure, and wear life out at such a rate that at fifty the 
victim must be discarded for a younger man, scrapped 
like outworn machinery. The danger of fatal or crippling 
accident is ever present, with small possibility of redress 
against the battalioned lawyers of the employer or liability 
company, and with certainty of distress and privation for 
the family whose breadwinner is helpless. " More men are 
killed and wounded every year by the railroads that 
employ them than were killed and wounded by General 
Lee's army in the sanguinary three days' conflict at Gettys- 
burg; the coal-mines approximate fifteen hundred killings 
and thirty-five hundred maimings yearly, while the casu- 
alty list of the factories, though uncomputed, is known 
to be enormous. Yet every effort to lessen the number of 

^ Hobson, The Social Problem, pp. 11-12. 

No stronger condemnation of the effects of division of labor, " unless 
government take some pains to prevent it," can be found than Adam 
Smith's: "The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple 
operations, of which the effects, too, are perhaps always the same, or 
very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to 
exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties 
which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exer- 
tion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a 
human creature to become. . . . His dexterity at his own particular 
tradft seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intel- 
lectual, social, and martial virtues." — Wealth of Nations, bk. v, chap, i, 
Bohn ed., ii, p. 302. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 33 

these casualties, so long as it involves expense, is resisted. 
. . . Life is but a bagatelle when it stands in the way of 
profit." 1 

Equally dangerous in the long run are the artificial and 
unsanitary conditions which prevail in the crowded fac- 
tory. "We shall here merely allude," Marx declares in 
his chief work, "to the material conditions under which 
factory labor is carried on. Every organ of sense is injured 
in an equal degree by artificial elevation of temperature, 
by the dust-laden atmosphere, by the deafening noise. . . . 
Economy of the social means of production, matured and 
formed as in a hot-house, is turned, in the hands of capital, 
into systematic robbery of what is necessary for the life 
of the workman while he is at work — robbery of space, 
light, air, and protection to his person against the danger- 
ous and unwholesome accompaniments of the productive 
process, not to mention the robbery of appliances for the 
comfort of the worker. ... At the same time that fac- 
tory work exhausts the nervous system to the uttermost, 
it does away with the many-sided play of the muscles and 
confiscates every atom of freedom, both in bodily and intel- 
lectual activity." ^ 

For all the exhausting rigor and the gray monotony of 
his toil, the workman's greatest fear is lest he should lose 
it. Worse than want is the constant dread and fear of 
want, the harrowing insecurity caused by the perpetual 
menace of unemployment. "The position of the working 
class in modern society is so unbearable, and compares so 
unfavorably with every former method of production, 
not because the worker receives only a fraction of the new 
value produced by him, but because this fractional pay- 
ment is combined with the uncertainty of his proletarian 
existence ; . . . because of the growing impossibility for 

> Ghent, Mass and Class, pp. 234-253. 

* Capital, i, translated by Moor* and Aveling; Humboldt edition, pp. 
260, 261. 



34 SOCIALISM 

the individual workers to free themselves from the double 
dependence upon the employing class and the vicissitudes 
of the industrial cycle; because of the constant threat of 
being thrown from one sphere of industry into another 
lower one, or into the army of the unemployed." ^ 

And for this unremitting, maiming, and precarious toil, 
what share falls to the workingman when the time for the 
distribution of the joint product comes? What possibilities 
of decent and comfortable livelihood are placed at his 
disposal? So small a share, it is charged, that for the mass 
of the workers the existing order means lifelong poverty. 
What wealth is produced is distributed with gross and in- 
credible unfairness. To the few, untold millions are given, 
unlimited command over the lives and services of their 
fellows, opportunity for boundless luxury and maddening 
display; to the many, a starving pittance which barely 
holds body and soul together and shuts out all hope of 
development and culture. 

"In the United Kingdom," concludes a recent social- 
istic investigator, " out of a population of 43,000,000, as 
many as 38,000,000 are poor. . . . The United Kingdom 
is seen to contain a great multitude of poor people ven- 
eered with a thin layer of the comfortable and the rich. 
... In an average year eight millionaires die leaving 
between them three times as much wealth as is left by 
644,000 poor persons who die in one year. Again, in a 
single average year, the wealth left by the few rich people 
who die approaches in amount the aggregate property 
possessed by the whole of the living poor. . . . About 
one seventieth part of the population owns far more than 
one half of the entire accumulated wealth, public and 
private, of the United Kingdom." ^ And even in the United 
States, with its comparative freedom from caste and in- 
herited privilege, and its half a fertile continent to exploit, 

> Bernstein, Ferdinand Lassalle, p. 135. 

« Chiozza-Money, Riches and Poverty, pp. 43, 52, 72. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 35 

another socialist charges that ten million people are sunk 
in poverty, four million of them in receipt of relief.^ ^-^\ ' 

The fractional share of the national dividend which f;dls 
to the manual workers makes it impossible to secure any 
more favorable surroundings for the hours of leisure than 
for the hours of work. For the pittance that can go for 
rent there are available only drably hideous, overcrowded, 
and unsanitary dwellings. Take this picture of Manchester, 
the citadel of free competition, as seen half a century ago 
by Frederick Engels : — 

The manner in which the great multitude of the poor is 
treated by society to-day is revolting. They are drawn into the 
large cities where they breathe a poorer atmosphere than in the 
country; they are relegated to districts which, by reason of the 
method of construction, are worse ventilated than any others; 
they are deprived of all means of cleanliness, of water itself, 
since pipes are laid only when paid for, and the rivers so polluted 
that they are useless for such purposes; they are obliged to throw 
all offal and garbage, all dirty water, often all disgusting offal 
and excrement into the streets, being without other means of 
disposing of them. ... As though the vitiated atmosphere of 
the streets were not enough, they are penned in dozens into 
single rooms, . . . they are given damp dwellings, cellar dens 
that are not waterproof from below, or garrets that leak from 
above. Their houses are so built that the clammy air cannot 
escape. . . . The view from the bridge is characteristic for the 
whole district. At the bottom flows, or rather stagnates, the Irk, 
a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream, full of debris and 
refuse, which it deposits on the shallower right bank. . • . 
Everywhere heaps of debris, refuse and offal; standing pools for 
gutters, and a stench which alone would make it impossible for 
a human being in any degree civilized to live in such a district. 
. . . The whole side of the Irk is built in this way, a planless, 
knotted chaos of houses, more or less on the verge of uninhabit- 
ableness, whose unclean interiors fully correspond with their 
filthy external surroundings. ... In truth it cannot be charged 
to the account of these helots of modern society if their dwellings 
are not more cleanly than the pigsties which are here and there 
to be seen among them. . . . My description is far from black 

'■ Huater, Poverty, p. 60. 



S6 SOCIALISM 

enough to convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and unin- 
habitableness, the defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, 
ventilation, and health which characterize . . . this district."^ 

Lest it be said that such clammy hideousness belongs 
to the pre-sanitary age alone, a socialist of to-day paints 
as black a picture of a quarter of twentieth-century Chi- 
cago — " back of the Yards " : — 

From the general air of hoggishness that pervades everything 
from the general manager's offices down to the pens beneath the 
buildings and up to the smoke that hangs over it all, the whole 
thing is purely capitalistic. . . . [One's] nostrils are assailed 
at every point by the horribly penetrating stench that pervades 
everything. . . . Great volumes of smoke roll from the forest 
of chimneys at all hours of the day, and drift down over the help- 
less neighborhood like a deep black curtain that fain would hide 
the suffering and misery it aggravates. The foul packing-house 
sewage, too horribly offensive in its putrid rottenness for further 
exploitation even by monopolistic greed, is spewijd foT^^m a__ 
multitude of arteries of filth into a branch of the Chicalp^iX'er 
at one corner of the Yards, where it rises to the top and spreads 
out in a nameless indescribable cake of festering foulness and 
disease-breeding stench. On the banks of this sluiceway of nasti- 
ness are several acres of bristles scraped from the backs of in- 
numerable hogs and spread out to allow the still clinging animal 
matter to rot away before they are made up into brushes. . . . 
Tom Carey, now alderman of this ward, . . . owns long rows 
of some of the most unhealthy houses in this deadly neighbor- 
hood. These houses have no connection with the sewers, and 
under some of them the accumulation of years of filth has gath- 
ered in a semi-liquid mass from two to three feet deep. Shabbily 
built in the first place and then subjected to years of neglect, 
they are veritable death-traps. A cast-iron pull with the Health 
Department renders him safe from any prosecution. 

Such housing conditions as these mean low vitality and 
constant exposure to infection, and in view of the workers* 
inability to obtain the needed rest or change of air or 
expert attention, involve a death-roll out of all proportion. 

« Frederick Engels, Condition of the Working Class in England in ISO, 
pp. 97, 49-53. 

' A. M. Simons, Packingtown, pp. 2, 9-10, 18-19. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT 37 

"The fact that an average town manual worker lives some 
fifteen years less than an average member of the well-to- 
do classes is, perhaps, the largest measurable leakage of 
social working power with which we are confronted." ^ 
It is on the helpless children that the penalty of their 
parents' failure in the race for wealth chiefly falls. "Cap- 
italist society is sick with many sores," a recent socialist 
tract declares, "but of all the phases of its disorder none 
offer such sure portents of dissolution as the official sta- 
tistics of infantile disease and death. . . . The bloodiest 
war that-'^a^ ever waged dealt lightly with the human 
family in-r!oinpari|^ with the toll of innocent lives un- 
ceasingly and UHwecessarily offered up to Mammon in the 
twentieth century of the Christian dispensation. . , . 212 
babies under one year died out of every thousand born in 
industrial Bromley as against 85 in suburban Hornsey, 
... 77 in p«)sperous Hampstead as against 163 in poverty- 
stricken Shoreditch. . . . Whether it be the industrial 
labor of mothers in dangerous trades or too near their 
confinement, the malnutrition of the children, the alcohol- 
ism or degeneracy in one or both parents, overcrowding 
with its attendant evils of overlaying and dirt, all alike 
are traceable to the inhuman condition into which millions 
of the workers are forced by the exploitation of their 
labor." 2 

What is the effect of competitive industrialism on moral 
life? Here again the tally against capitalism is marked 
deep in the socialist stick. "Next to intemperance in the 
enjoyment of intoxicating liquors," declares Engels, "one 
of the principal faults of English workingmen is sexual 
license. But this too follows with relentless logic, with 
inevitable necessity, out of the position of a class left to 
itself, with no means of making fitting use of its freedom. 

* Hobson, The Social Problem, p. 10. 

' Fisher, The Babies' Tribute to the Modern Moloch, Twentieth Century 
Press (S. D. P.), pp. 4-6, 15. 

102486 



38 SOCIALISM 

The bourgeoisie has left the working class only these two 
pleasures, while imposing upon it a multitude of labors 
and hardships, and the consequence is that the working- 
men, in order to get something from life, concentrate their 
whole energy upon these two enjoyments, carry them to 
excess, surrender to them in the most unbridled manner." ^ 
The dull monotony of existence drives them to "boozing 
and gambling and allied forms of excitement," even 
though "in its ordinary relations the great bulk of the 
wage-earning class remains thoroughly permeated with 
common social morality." ^ German testimony is to the 
same effect.^ The insufficiency of the wages upon which 
many a hard-working girl is supposed to keep body and 
soul together forces recourse "to the oldest trade in the 
world. Not till we measure [this element in wages] will 
the world know the true cost of 'cheap labor.'" ^ Family 
life becomes impossible, what with the absence of the 
father and often of the mother all day long, the frequency 
of marriage merely for the support which the woman can- 
not otherwise obtain, the promiscuity and crowding of the 
workers' homes. "Thus the social order makes family life 
almost impossible for the worker. In a comfortless, filthy 
house ... a foul atmosphere filling rooms overcrowded 

1 Condition of the Working Class, p. 128. 

» Sydney Olivier, in Fabian Essays, American edition, p. 113. 

' "I believe that in the whole laboring class of Chemnitz it would 
be hard to find a young man or a young woman over seventeen, who is 
chaste. Sexual intercourse, largely the product of these dance-halls, has 
assumed enormous proportions among the youth of to-day." — Gohre, 
Three Months in a Workshop, pp. 202-203. 

^ Smart, Studies in Economics, p. 129. 

"It is a well-known fact that in the department stores of the large 
cities girls are employed for the small sum of $3.50 per week. Even if 
they live at home without paying board they could not pay their car-fare 
and dress as well as they are obliged to do to hold their places. They are 
frankly told that they have other means of earning a living if they are 
not satisfied with the wages they get, and none will dispute me that most 
of them are obliged to use those means." — May Walden Kerr. Socialism 
and the Home. p. 2§. 



THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT S9 

with human beings, no domestic comfort is possible. The 
husband works the whole day through, perhaps the wife 
also and the elder children, all in different places; they 
meet morning and night only, all under perpetual tempta- 
tion to drink; what family life is possible under such con- 
ditions ? " 1 

And then society adds insult to injury by blaming on 
the individual the lapses its own perverse social arrange-* 
ments have caused. "When we have bound the laborer 
fast to his wheel," comments Sidney Webb, "when we 
have practically excluded the average man from every 
real chance of improving his condition, when we have 
virtually denied to him the means of sharing in the higher 
feelings and larger sympathies of the cultured race; when 
we have shortened his life in our service, stunted his 
growth in our factories, racked him wath unnecessary 
disease by our exactions, tortured his soul with that worst 
of all pains, the fear of poverty, condemned his wife and 
children to sicken and die before his eyes, in spite of his 
own perpetual round of toil — then we are aggrieved that 
he often loses hope, gambles for the windfall that is denied 
to his industry, attempts to drown his cares in drink, and, 
driven by his misery irresistibly down the steep hill of 
vice, passes into that evil circle where vice begets poverty 
and poverty intensifies vice, until Society unrelentingly 
stamps him out as vermin. Thereupon we lay the flatter- 
ing unction to our souls that it was his own fault, that he 
had his chance, and we preach to his fellows thrift and 
temperance, prudence and virtue, but always industry, 
that industry of others that keeps the industrial machine 
in motion, so that we can still enjoy the opportunity of 
taxing it." ^ 

The quotations given above fairly represent, it is be- 
lieved, the tone and the content of the socialist indictment 

» Engels, op. cit., p. 129. 

» English Progress towards Democracy, Fabian Tract no. 15, p. 7. 



40 SOCIALISM 

as it is presented in the current party literature. They 
scarcely do justice, however, to the powers of invective 
developed in the soap-boxer's nightly tirades, which rarely 
find their way into sobering print. As an illustration of 
the more extreme denunciation to which popular audi- 
ences are treated, and incidentally as an example of the 
capacities of the English language, the following outburst 
may serve; it was occasioned by the jury's finding Hay- 
wood, ex-president of the Western Miners' Federation, not 
guilty of the charges of murder in the Colorado labor war: 

"Not guilty!" 

What an immeasurable, imperishable victory! 

What a glorious consummation of one united, heroic struggle 
of a nation's crucified toilers! What an awakening hope for the 
world's disinherited! 

A million calloused hands snatched Haywood, the true, from 
the despoiler's gallows at the very hour when gathered together 
the wolves, the jackals, the vultures and vampires — scum and 
scurf of hell's outpouring — to slake their thirst in our brother's 
blood. 

Knowing full well his impurchasable fidelity to his class and 
fearing his influence among their wretched victims, half mad- 
dened to revolt, every cunning tyrant and trickster in this greed- 
cursed nation, every snake-eyed Shylock smirking and hissing, 
exacting his "pound of flesh," every debaiicher and exploiter of 
the weak and helpless, every prowler and panderer and plunderer 
of the nation, every loathsome apologist and cringing sycophant 
in press and pulpit, ear-deep in the mire, rooting for crumbs in 
their master's stall; every slave-driver, blood-sucker, and knee- 
crooking vagabond of this hell-born coterie of "law and order" 
pismires joined in a mighty wail as of all the fiends in hell in 
chorus for the blood of Haywood, as they cried for the blood of 
Parsons and his comrades some twenty years ago.^ 

Methinks the lady doth protest too much. 

> J. Edward Morgan, Chicago Daily Socialist, August 8, 1907. 



CHAPTER III 

THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 

The indictment is a serious one. A social order against 
which such charges can be laid with any color of reason 
cannot be considered perfect by even the most easy-going 
of optimists. The socialist who focuses attention on the 
weak spots in the industrial structure performs a valuable 
service, lessened though the service may be by the whole- 
sale and indiscriminating character of the denunciation. 
Candid recognition of the full extent of existing evils is 
the indispensable first step in progress and reform. Yet the 
indictment recorded fails to carry conviction to the im- 
partial observer. It is beyond doubt one-sided and ex- 
aggerated, the truth it contains nullified by the truth it 
neglects. The socialist has painted existing conditions too 
black. He has grudged full recognition of the immensely 
strong points of our industrial system. He directs his 
shafts against a mythical extreme individualism, ignoring 
the restraining social forces implicit in the existing order, 
forces fully as characteristic as the scope and play which 
in the main are permitted to individual ambition and in- 
dividual initiative. He has thrown the undivided blame 
for all the world's misery and failure on social institutions, 
on the tools men use, rather than on the limitations of the 
purely human men who use them. 

The socialist has painted too black a picture. It is not 
merely that he has contrasted the dreamed ideals of 
socialism with the actualities of the competitive order; he 
has viewed those actualities out of all perspective. In his 
survey of society the one instance of failure is ever present 
to his gaze, the nine of success do not come within the 



42 SOCIALISM 

range of his misery-focused lens. He cannot see the woods 
for the few decaying branches on the trees. His ear is 
attuned only to inharmonies. He sees the reeking fester 
of the slum, but is blind to the millions of homes in city 
and town and country where hard work brings forth its 
fruits of modest comfort and life is held well worth the 
living. He is alert to the occasional failure in adjustment 
of supply and demand, but passes over the continuous 
miracle by which the products of the ends of the earth are 
brought to each man's door and the world's markets made 
one. He culls industriously the instances of graft and dis- 
honesty in contemporary business life, no difficult task, 
and presents them as typical of current practice, forgetting 
the sound honesty of the majority that provides the drab 
background for the scarlet sins, forgetting that no endur- 
ing commercial structure can be built on fraud, that gen- 
eral honesty and fair dealing are absolutely indispensable 
to the working of our complicated and interdependent 
industrial system, that the fabric of credit that the past 
few generations have reared posits a general high standard 
of business ethics — not the perfect standard of the closet 
moralist, but a pretty presentable work-a-day approxima- 
tion; that, in short, unless there existed a general ex- 
pectation of squareness, born of experience, the operations 
of the exceptional crook would be impossible. He is like 
the yellow journal which mirrors, not life, but the excep- 
tional sensation and crime that mar life; leaves John 
Smith in obscurity if for a lifetime he does honest work and 
devotes himself to his home interests, and exalts him to 
front-page publicity if on a day he loses himself in drink 
and murders half the family. 

The socialist indictment gives but grudging recognition 
or none to the proved and tried efficiency of the existing 
order. Under an industrial system based on private pro- 
perty and individual competition, the most powerful and 
abiding force in human nature, self-interest, which includes 



' THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 4S 

/the interest in the wider self, the family, is harnessed in 
'' society's service. The prizes in the struggle — not mere 
heaped-up and hoarded dollars, but the prestige of success, 
the power that money gives, the opportunities of enjoy- 
ment or of service it opens — fall in the main to those who 
most widely and most efficiently have met the economic 
needs of their fellows. The price of success is alertness to 
seize on every uncatered opportunity; courage to break 
new trails; ability to make the process of production more 
efficient, the integration and adjustment of industry more 
thorough, the fitting of ability to task more complete; 
keenness to stop all leakages and wastes, unremitting 
striving to outbid one's fellows by offering most for least. 
"The stimulus of private property," wrote Arthur Young 
a century ago, "turns the sands to gold." It is not implied 
that personal interest is the sole force at the disposal of a 
society based on private property. Altruistic motives find 
ever wider scope. More and more under the existing order 
men are animated by the desire to serve their fellows, both 
in the day's work and out of the wealth a life of work has 
garnered. Never was the social conscience so keen, never 
was the sense of the trusteeship of wealth so widespread, 
never was the organization of philanthropy and public 
service so complete. But the effectiveness of the altruistic 
motive is no reason for disregarding the self-seeking spur to 
action. Both must be utilized. The task of meeting the 
needs of the millions who every day grow more ambitious 
in their standards and more insistent in their demands is 
too tremendous to make it possible to discard the instru- 
ment which has been found of most effective service. Indi- 
vidual ambition will always keep men's demands on life 
high. Individual ambition must be harnessed to keep the 
supply as high. 

Individual initiative does not involve individual isola- 
tion. Its complement is voluntary cooperation. Stock- 
holders in a corporation, artisans in a trade union, farmers 



44 SOCIALISM 

in a purchasing or selling syndicate seek the strength that 
comes from union. Mutual aid knits up the otherwise scat- 
tered and incoherent forces. Society must not be confused 
with the state. Compulsory cooperation is not the only 
alternative to individualist anarchy. Society is inexhaust- 
ibly fertile in its spontaneous groupings : religious, political, 
scientific, charitable, commercial interests draw men 
together in countless associations. We are caught in a 
thousand strands. 

Nor does individual initiative in meeting economic wants 
involve a serious lack of adjustment between demand and 
supply. It might seem at first glance that without central 
supervision harmonious cooperation would be impossible, 
that the competitive system, faced for example with the 
task of the daily provisioning of New York or London, 
would break down under the task, alternating between 
unforeseen glut and unforeseen famine. But the miracle 
is every day performed. The fact is that in great totals 
chance is self-canceled; a defection here offsets an acces- 
sion there. There is really nothing less arbitrary, less un- 
predictable than the sequences of social phenomena. Births 
and deaths, marriages and divorces, suicides and murders, 
the posting of letters without any address, occur year in and 
year out with remarkable regularity. And so with the affairs 
of trade and industry : without any conscious, centralized 
compulsion demand and supply approximate, not with ex- 
act precision, it is true, but without serious gaps in normal 
times. Even if we adopt the favorite socialist conception 
of society as an organism, it is to be remembered that the 
chief organic movements of the human body are carried on 
without conscious volition or reflection. If every breath, 
every heart-beat, had to be consciously and separately 
willed, neither the bodily nor the mental functions would 
be performed with much success.^ 

The mechanism by w^hich equilibrium is secured between 
* Cf. Leroy-Beaulieu, Le Collectimme, p. 318. 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 45 

the demand of widely scattered consumers and the supply 
forthcoming from independent producers is simply price 
variation. The oscillations of the money price of commod- 
ities act as a barometer for the producers' guidance. If an 
insufficient proportion of the productive forces of a country 
is engaged in cotton manufacture, the rise of price of cotton 
goods, or rather the increase of the margin between cost 
and sale price, mdicates an opportunity for more than aver- 
age gain, and new capital pours in until the equilibrium is 
restored. If too large a share is turned into the channel of 
boot and shoe production, the fall of price or profit effects 
the same adjustment. The purchasing power of the con- 
suming public may not be fairly distributed, judged by 
some abstract principle of justice, may not be rationally 
directed, judged by some sociological canon of expenditure, 
but distributed and directed as it is, it secures in marvel- 
ous fashion, through the price oscillations of a competi- 
tive economy, the most efficient disposition of the product- 
ive forces. It is the very simplicity and familiarity of the 
mechanism of price variation which leads superficial critics 
of social institutions to overlook its remarkably efficient 
services. 

The institutions of private property and individual com- 
petition are based, not on blind traditionalism or class 
oppression but on the experience which all the progressive 
races of mankind have attained of their social utility and 
their flexible adaptability to changing social needs. Priv- 
ate property has ousted the primitive communism which 
preceded it simply because it has been found to be the pro- 
perty form most conducive to industrial progress and ef- 
ficiency. To-day, when the socialist is urging mankind to 
retrace its steps and set up once more the institutions it has 
outgrown, the Russian Duma acknowledges the superiority 
of private ownership by sweeping away the common land- 
holding system of the Mir. Doubtless private property has 
its drawbacks, its wastes and its failures, but the test of 



46 SOCIALISM 

efficiency in any social institution is not the impossible ons 
of unqualified perfection but the degree of service over cost, 
the net balance of advantage. So incalculably great is the 
driving force which the stimulus of private interest sup- 
plies that even such a thorough-going critic as Professor 
Veblen sums up his indictment of the social waste of much 
competitive effort by declaring : " While it is in the nature of 
things unavoidable that the management of industry by 
modern business methods should involve a large misdirec- 
tion of effort and a large waste of goods and services, it is 
also true that the aims and ideals to which this manner 
of economic life gives effect act forcibly to offset all this 
incidental futility. These pecuniary aims and ideals have 
a very great effect, for instance, in making men work hard 
and unremittingly, so that on this ground alone the busi- 
ness system probably compensates for any waste involved 
in its working. There seems, therefore, to be no tenable 
ground for thinking that the working of the modern system 
involves a curtailment of the community's livelihood." ^ 

The socialist indictment errs, therefore, in ignoring the 
strong features of a competitive sj^stem, its positive advan- 
tages, and stressing out of all proportion the weak points, 
the negative deductions. Yet what of these weak points, 
these unsocial tendencies charged against competition, the 
poisonous adulteration, the young children stunted at 
the loom, the careless waste of human life in the pursuit of 
material wealth ? In or out of proportion, they are none 
the less real. No impartial observer of contemporary con- 
ditions can maintain that individual and social interests 
invariably coincide, that in the race for wealth only those 
succeed who have best served their fellows. The frequently 
dangerous and unwholesome tendencies of unregulated 
competition are a patent fact. The socialist error here lies 
not in any mis-statement of these tendencies but in the 
failure to recognize the counteracting forces at work. In 
* Theory of Business Enterprise, p. 65. 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 47 

many cases the self-interest of one section or group suffices 
to thwart the injurious tendencies of the self-interest of 
another group. And where this recourse fails, the power 
of the state may be invoked to hold the balance fair. 

If our existing industrial organization were committed 
to a laissez-faire acceptance of the results, good and bad 
alike, of unregulated competition, the position of its social- 
ist opponent would be a strong one. But fortunately for 
society such an extreme doctrinaire attitude does not pre- 
vail. Our existing society is not of individualism all com- 
pact. In it, as in every other society since time began, there 
have been combined the complementary forces of individ- 
ual initiative and social control. They have been com- 
bined in varying proportions, now the one force dominat- 
ing, now the other. Following the excess of state regulation 
in the early stages of modern industrial development, there 
came the excessive license of the early nineteenth century. 
The manufacturer was led by unenlightened selfishness to 
resist all restraint ; the public was blinded to the human 
cost by the tremendous increase in material productivity ; 
the economist, in his more doctrinaire moods, assumed a 
harmony of social and individual interest providential in 
its completeness. Yet the complacency was short-lived. 
The public came to realize that individualism pure and un- 
defiled was at one with socialism in requiring for its success- 
ful working a perfected human nature. A new system of 
regulation aiming at raising competition to a higher level 
began to take shape long before the destruction of the old 
system of regulation, aiming at the repression of competi- 
tion, approached completion. The first factory act, regu- 
lating the employment of apprentices, was passed in Great 
Britain in 1802, over fifty years before the protective tariff 
was completely overthrown. The pendulum still swings in 
the same direction. More and more the modern state is 
realizing its true function of raising the ethical level of 
competition, retaining the struggle while insisting that it 



48 SOCIALISM 

shall not be carried on at the expense of the weak and help- 
less. While it declines to follow the advice of the socialist 
and play the whole game itself, the state gives inestimable 
service by acting as referee. 

The socialist complaint that under a regime of individual 
enterprise important utilities will fail to be provided be- 
cause yielding no profit that may be privately appropri- 
ated would hold good against the mythical laissez-faire 
bogey it attacks, but has little application in the case of the 
actual state. Even Adam Smith's statement of the irre- 
ducible minimum of state functions included "the duty of 
erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain 
public institutions, which it can never be for the interest 
of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect 
and maintain; because the profit would never repay the 
expense to any individual or small number of individuals, 
though it may frequently do much more than repay it to 
a great society." ^ The principle is a far-reaching one, and 
has guided and justified a wide programme of governmental 
encouragement to production and commerce as well as oL 
social reform, from the provision of lighthouses to the pro- 
vision of supervised playgrounds. Especially important 
has been the role of the state as the conservator of society's 
permanent interests. It is a role which has not always been 
assumed as promptly and played as whole-heartedly as 
might be desired; the tardiness of American governments 
in following European example in preserving the forests is 
a case in point, due in part, it is true, to the short-sighted 
hostility of private interest, but in part also to the difficulty 
of readjusting conceptions formed in the days of seemingly 
illimitable resources to the needs of a less sanguine and 
more thrifty time, and in part to the characteristic and 
crippling lack of initiative in state administration. Even 
where governmental intervention has been invoked to sup- 
ply the lack of individual profit-making enterprise, it has 
' Wealth of Nations, bk. iv, chap, ix, Bohn edition, ii, p. 207. 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 49 

as a rule been made possible only by long agitation and 
pressure from without by individuals or voluntary associa- 
tions. 

The socialist complains that in the competitive struggle 
the weaklings are trampled on, and hastily cries out for the 
abolition of competition and the assumption of industrial 
functions by the all-wise and all-kindly state. The remedy 
actually applied has been the saner one of preserving com- 
petition while endeavoring to make the weaklings fit for the 
fray, training all to take a manful and intelligent part in 
the struggle for existence. In nearly every industrial state, 
though in greatly varying degree, the government supple- 
ments the efforts of the family and of individual and organ- 
ized philanthropy to insure that every child grows up in 
sanitary surroundings, that he is given the cultural and 
vocational education to equip him for hving as well as 
for making a living, that wholesome recreation facilities 
are brought within his reach, and that he is not prema- 
turely swept into the industrial struggle, before, on its 
lowest terms, his full economic efficiency has been devel- 
oped. Much yet remains to be done even in the most 
advanced countries; much to bring the more backward to 
their level; the very benevolence of modern society tends 
to complicate its problems by preserving many halt and 
weak who would otherwise have gone down in the fray; the 
immigration of countless hordes of peoples from the coun- 
tries not yet organized on a competitive industrial basis — 
the factoryless paradises of southeastern Europe and of 
Asia, where the "blight of capitalism " has not yet seriously 
entered — into the capitalistic countries which they unac- 
countably prefer, ^ makes the task of training never ending. 

^ It is significant that the worst abuses to which the socialist can point 
are not properly chargeable to the capitalism he indicts. The horrors of 
the sweatshop are the result of the lingering survival of the primitive do- 
mestic or handicraft system; the much-abused «ipitalistic factory is free 
from the worst of the ills to which the isolated producer is subject. And 
at least so far as America is concerned, the low standards of living and 



50 SOCIALISM 

But it is a task which a competitive society must face or 
perish, and it is being manfully faced and encouragingly 
accomplished. 

Competition, the socialist charges, may be carried on at 
the expense of the consumer, increasing the price he must 
pay for his wares and debasing their quality. The paradox- 
ical assertion of increased prices is based on the assumption 
that the middleman is merely a parasite on industry, or, 
if his potential productive service is recognized, that too 
great a number of middlemen are engaged in commerce, 
with resultant expense for the consumers on whom they 
are quartered. The attitude is of long standing. In medi- 
eval times the socialist's ancestor passed strict laws against 
the evil machinations of the forestaller and the engrosser 
who came between the producer and the ultimate con- 
sumer. The socialist of to-day suffers from the same in- 
ability to grasp the elementary fact that the utilities of 
time and space may be as real as the utilities of form 
and content. The merchant who brings the cloth to the 
consumer's town and stores it until the demand arises, 
performs as essential service as the rancher who grew the 
wool or the weaver who wove the yarn into cloth. When 
again, it is charged that free competition inevitably lures 
into commerce more merchants than are needed, the ques- 
tion turns on the measure of need, on the degree of special- 
ization of function desired. Doubtless in any city it would 
be possible to exist with only half the present number of 
stores, possible even to concentrate custom on a single 
central establishment in each line, but it would be pos- 
sible only by sacrificing the time and convenience of the 
thousands of customers, by throwing on the consumer 
part of the burden of storage and distribution which in 
a fully organized division of labor is assumed by the 
merchant. The gain would be as illusory as the gain of the 

overcrowded conditions which excite compassion are chiefly to be found 
among newcomers from non-capitahstic countries. 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 51 

busy professional man who would seek to economize by 
making his own shoes, or typewriting his own correspond- 
ence. 

Or it is from adulteration and scamping of work that the 
consumer is said to suffer. Rivalry in price-cutting leads 
the more unscrupulous to sand the sugar and paper-sole the 
shoe; the anonymity and the continental scale of modern 
production, far afield from the conditions of handicraft 
days, when producer and consumer lived side by side and 
a care for reputation safeguarded quality, make it impos- 
sible to detect the fraud. The indictment has only too 
much truth, but here again it ignores the possibilities of 
remedy inherent in the existing system. To an increasing 
extent the self-interest of the producer effects a cure. Com- 
petition is at work not merely in price but in quality, wher- 
ever the credit for quality may be secured. The employ- 
ment of distinctive labels and trademarks, the growing use 
of package-goods, brought to the consumer's attention by 
advertising, do away with the anonymity of production 
and protect the consumer by locating the responsibility. 
Of narrower range, but still important, is the allied protec- 
tion which the union label affords in some lines, particu- 
larly against the danger of infection by commodities pro- 
duced in unsanitary surroundings. Yet a third remedy is 
afforded by government inspection, analysis, and publicity, 
particularly adaptable to the cases where the average 
buyer is not qualified to make the necessary tests. 

Or it is financial rather than commercial fraud which is 
emphasized. The investor, it is claimed, is as much at the 
mercy of the unscrupulous promoter as the consumer is at 
the mercy of the unscrupulous manufacturer; the anonym- 
ity of the joint-stock company cloaks as much rascality 
as the anonymity of consumption goods. The case is not 
so hopeless as is alleged. For the untrained investor there 
are always available safe, if not highly remunerative, op- 
portunities for deposit or investment, whether in chartered 



62 SOCIALISM 

or postal savings-banks, or in the bonds of the more stable 
governments or industrial enterprises. In the more pre- 
carious undertakings, so far as the risk is due to fraud- 
ulent promotion or speculative management, it is as much 
the duty of the state to provide safeguard and punishment 
as in the case of highway robbery. It is a duty which every 
state has recognized and endeavored to fulfill, though with 
varying degrees of success : governments being no more uni- 
form in virtue and efficiency than individuals, there is in- 
evitably a wide range between the company laws of graft- 
ing American states which for value received are ready to 
grant letters of marque to all comers, and the laws of the 
more self-respecting commonwealths or of Britain or Ger- 
many, So far as the risk is due to the uncertamty of busi- 
ness enterprise, it is a risk which the investor must assume 
unaided; it is precisely this readiness of the private capital- 
ist to venture his wealth in untried ways which is the main- 
spring of industrial progress and the chief justification of 
private property. The losses are insurance premiums 
against socialism. 

The workingman, it is further charged, suffers even more 
seriously than the consumer and the investor under a com- 
petitive system based on private property in the instru- 
ments of production. We are given a harrowing picture 
of the present-day wage-slave cowering under the lash of 
the tyrannical capitalist, forced to accept long hours, low 
wages, and unsanitary working and housing surroundings, 
and condemned to lifelong monotony of toil. The picture 
suffers from that lack of perspective and proportion which 
results from the habitual socialist preoccupation with the 
failures rather than the successes of modern industrialism. 
It ignores the forces actively at work in our existing society 
to repress abuse of power on the part of the capitalist and 
to secure to the workingman his full share of the fruits of 
progress. The strength of the working class is threefold, in 
the employer's realization of the trusteeship his power im- 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 53 

poses, in the intervention of the state to see that the game 
is fairly played, and in the self-help of trade-union organ- 
ization. 

In the first place no one who surveys the situation calmly 
would agree with the current socialist contention that every 
employer of labor grinds the faces of the poor, oblivious of 
the claims of his fellow men to fair treatment. A striking 
feature of contemporary social development is the grow th 
of industrial betterment activities, whether taking the 
form of model villages, attractive factory surroundings, 
recreational and educational facilities, or profit sharing. 
The social secretary restores the intimate personal touch 
lost with the expansion of the workshop into the factory 
and the transformation of individual into joint -stock own- 
ership. Hard-headed business men make once more the 
old discovery that decency pays even in dollars and cents. 
It is true that these welfare activities cannot, even if uni- 
versally adopted, of themselves provide a solution of the 
relations between capital and labor satisfactory to our 
democratic age; they may even make matters worse, if 
inspired by fussy paternalism and the condescending char- 
ity of Lady Bountifuls, or if designed to take the place of 
wage concessions due or to break up labor organizations. 
Prompted, however, by a sympathetic recognition of the 
human needs and potentialities of the men and women em- 
ployed, buttressed by experience of their financial expedi- 
ency, and democratized by entrusting their operation as 
far as possible to the employees themselves, they hold high 
promise of social service. 

Of more widespread importance is the intervention of 
the state. In country after country, as industrial develop- 
ment proceeds and experience of the evils that come with 
its gains compels action, codes of factory legislation have 
been formed which are virtually workingmen's charters. 
A national minimum of sanitation and of light and space 
is prescribed, the labor of children of tender years prohib- 



64 SOCIALISM 

ited, the hours of work of older children, women, and in 
many instances, men, regulated, safeguards against ac- 
cidents and occupational disease demanded, the time and 
manner of payment of wages strictly stipulated. The stand 
is firmly taken that competition must not be carried on at 
the expense of the worker's health and vitality. 

Yet neither the good-will of the better type of employers 
nor the intervention of the state does more than supplement 
the workingman's own efforts. Collective self-help is the 
most indispensable weapon in his arsenal. Under the exist- 
ing industrial order it has become ever surer and more ef- 
ficient. The typical modern workingman, labeled " wage- 
slave " in the heated rhetoric of socialist denunciation, is 
well equipped for the struggle to secure the largest possible 
share of the national dividend. Education has widened 
his horizon, the training and companionship of the factory 
or railroad have sharpened his perceptions, improved work- 
ing and housing conditions have increased his stamina. 
Union with his fellow workers in local, national, and even 
international organizations has given to each man's labor 
something of the indispensableness of labor as a whole, has 
pooled scanty individual resources to provide reserves for 
strike or unemployment, and has placed at the service of all 
the bargaining ability and shrewder tactics of the few who 
forge to the front as leaders. Collective bargaining steadily 
makes its way; trade agreements between the representa- 
tives of organized capital and organized labor witness the 
comingof" the constitutional factory," the gradual demo- 
cratization of industry by giving the workers a direct share 
in settling the conditions of their labor. Not even grafting 
or dishonoring of contracts by occasional labor leaders, nor 
the militant anti-unionism of belated reactionaries of the 
Parry and Kirby type, nor the eighteenth -century inter- 
pretations of freedom of contract still lurking in some 
judicial quarters, can permanently hinder or obscure the 
movement. 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 55 

The rapid development of insurance to cover the princi- 
pal contingencies to which the workman is exposed further 
arms him for his life-struggle. The isolated individual, de- 
prived of the support of the old kinship groups or ecclesias- 
tical organizations which would once have given succor in 
time of crisis, is liable to be crushed by sudden misfortune. 
Accident or prolonged sickness may incapacitate him for 
further work, unemployment may result from a general 
trade crisis or shift in fashion, his death may leave his fam- 
ily unprepared to grapple with the world. Fortunately, 
through the cooperative device of insurance, it has been 
found possible to redress the flukes of fate and to ease the 
burden by distributing it over a wide group. 

It is not the place here to discuss at any length the 
merits of voluntary and compulsory insurance, or the ques- 
tion whether the cost should be borne by the workingman, 
by the employer, by the state, or jointly. It is coming to 
be agreed that disablement by accident or by occupational 
disease is a trade risk, and that the burden should be 
thrown primarily on the employer or employer-group, to be 
recouped, as all other permanent and universal costs are 
recouped, in increased prices. For the contingency of un- 
employment it is generally recognized that the trade or- 
ganization, wherever it exists, is best able to judge of the 
genuineness of the workless man's plight, though it may be 
necessary for the local or national government to supple- 
ment the resources at its disposal. Where a system of 
public employment bureaus or labor exchanges enables 
the state to make the same test of the genuineness of un- 
employment, it becomes possible to establish a system of 
compulsory insurance, maintained mainly by the em- 
ployers and the workmen affected. Sickness, old age, and 
death the workingman shares with the rest of mankind 
and accordingly there is less need for special consideration. 
There is indeed a tendency in some few countries which 
have established non-contributory old-age pensions to re* 




56 SOCIALISM 

lease the individual from all responsibility so far as provid- 
ing for one at least of these contingencies is concerned, a 
tendency which may find regrettable justification in the 
concrete difficulties presented by the presence of millions of 
workers who have lacked the ability or the wish to save. 
Sounder, as taking the road of prevention rather than palli- 
ative, and keeping more in mind the interest of posterity, is 
the counter-tendency to help the individual to help himself, 
to insure that every man shall be able to earn and able to 
get a living and a saving wage, and then to leave him the 
burden and the moral opportunity of thrift, rather than to 
eke out starving wages by pauper doles. So far as the funds 
for state pensions come from the taxation of the working 
classes themselves, their gain is illusory, or at least no 
greater than the gain from compulsory individual saving; 
so far as the funds come from the employers and the gen- 
eral consuming public, better first than last, as just wages, 
not as pitying charity. The direct action of the govern- 
ment, where the more individualistic solution is adopted, 
is confined to supervising, and if need be supplementing, 
the joint-stock, mutual, and trade-union insurance and 
benefit organizations, the savings-banks and building- 
societies, and the many other instruments of thrift. 

Such are the main agencies actually at work to enable 
the workingman to obtain and to hold his share of the 
wealth which the progress of science and the opening- up of 
new lands are producing in ever greater abundance. In 
face of the growing enlightenment of the employers, the 
state^'S Insistence on refereeing the game, the trade union's 
unending pressure, the joint insurance against the crises pf 
the individual's life, the socialist contention that the work- 
ers of to-day are but wage-slaves is seen to be the emptiest 
rhe toric. The employer and the workingman, each equally 
dependent in the long run on the other's cooperation, 
^eet face to face as equal bargainers, now the one, now the 
other reaping advantage in the bargaining as the conditions 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 57 

of industrial activity vary. It is true that large-scale pro- 
duction makes uniformity of rules and regulations inevit- 
able: it is, in fact, the impossibility of each workman indi- 
vidually dickering as to the hours of beginning or ceasing 
work or the number of cubic feet of air-space allowed — 
an impossibility which would remain even in Mr. Keir 
Hardie's socialistic factory — that affords the justification 
of collective bargaining. To confuse individual conformity 
to rule with slavery, however, is utterly to misconceive the 
relation between law and liberty. 

Nor do the further specific counts in this section of the 
socialist indictment possess any greater validity than the 
charge that the factory system spells slavery. It is undeni- 
able that under the influence of the various agencies noted, 
long hours and unsanitary and dangerous working surround- 
ings are rapidly becoming isolated exceptions. As for the 
monotony and the harrowing effect of machine labor, it 
should be borne in mind that if for the former artisan the 
machine sometimes means a cramping and paralyzing of 
skill, for the unskilled laborer it opens up fields hitherto 
unattainable. Even for the artisan, it is a tenable position 
that within the factory the companionship and social inter- 
ests developed quite offset the loss in versatility and all- 
round activity involved in the passing of the autonomous 
but solitary handicraft, while the greater leisure afforded by 
the steady shortening of hours gives opportunity for the 
cultivation of outside interests. Again, the diflSculty ex- 
perienced by handicraftsmen, on the first extensive intro- 
duction of machinery, in adapting themselves to the new 
conditions, was a real and serious one, entailing untold 
misery. To-day, however, new inventions rarely produce 
such serious effects, since the similarity of the machinery 
used in many allied fields of industry, together with the 
growth of technical education, makes it possible for work- 
ingmen to change from one line to another, the more easily 
because not isolated, as the handicraftsmen often were, in 



58 SOCIALISM 

the country districts. The adjustment of supply and de« 
mand is effected not so much by actual displacement as 
by turning the new recruits into the growing industries 
and away from the decaying ones. Nor does the employ- 
ment of women and youths necessarily involve the ousting, 
certainly not the diminished employment, of male adult 
labor. There is no greater proportion of women and child- 
ren employed to-day than in our great-grandfathers' day; 
they have merely shifted the scene of their activities as 
one occupation after another, spinning, weaving, clothes- 
making, baking, butter-making, jam-making, has been 
sheared away from the primitive all-comprehensive func- 
tions of the home and converted into a specialized factory 
industry. And on the new scene the curtain is raised: the 
evils of overwork which passed unheeded in the domestic 
circle are recognized and corrected in the blaze of pub- 
licity the modern factory must face. 

Turning from the problems of wage-earning to the pro- 
blems of wage-spending, we are faced with serious presenta- 
tions of the poverty of the mass of the people. There is 
necessity here for discrimination. The poverty which is 
merely lesser wealth is not greatly to be deplored. In- 
equality in wealth is not in itself an evil. Great fortunes 
may be open to attack on exactly the same ground as small 
fortunes, wherever, that is, they have been heaped up by 
fraud, by the financial magnate's manipulation of the cor- 
porate properties under his control or by the small trades- 
man's use of his thirty -five- inch yardstick. Inequalities 
in wealth which correspond to differences in enterprise, in 
industry, in thrift, can be leveled only at the cost of para- 
lyzing production, and plunging the whole of society into 
an equality of misery. It is otherwise with the poverty 
that means positive degradation, the poverty in whose 
train follow overcrowding and disease, starvation of body 
and soul. Of such poverty there is only too much, especially 
in older lauds. But, as has been pointed out above, the 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 59 

pictures of poverty presented err grievously in perspective, 
an error which may be excused when the object is to rouse 
the careless to attention, but inexcusable when a calm esti- 
mate of the good and evil of the existing industrial system 
as a whole is being sought. The possibilities of decent liv- 
ing are increasingly brought within the reach of the vast 
majority. The stimulus of private enterprise has so per- 
fected production as to lower prices of goods and services 
in nearly every line, and to bring within the reach of the 
many of to-day what were the luxuries of the few of yester- 
day. Private benevolence and public intervention have 
provided for all comers the school, the library, and the 
museum, the park, the playground, and the bathing-beach. 
If, with these facilities for meeting the most necessary 
wants, ends do not always meet, the responsibility is not 
wholly to be thrown on the insufficiency of wage-resources. 
Equally at fault, though unaccountably neglected by the 
socialist critic, is the misdirection of expenditure, the pur- 
chase of a gramophone when the larder is bare, and the 
shiftless waste which prevents whatever expenditure is 
decided on from giving its full service. Saner standards of 
consumption are as vital and necessary as more equitable 
standards of distribution. The lessening by half of the 
British drink-bill, or the injection into the average Ameri- 
can household of the French qualities of ingenious thrift 
might work more improvement in the general welfare than 
the most pretentious scheme of industrial reorganization. 
Nor should attention be confined solely to the material 
goods whose unequal sharing has been the burden of social- 
ist complaint. The over-emphasis which socialism has 
placed on the material outcome of the competitive struggle 
is radically unsound. It is not merely dollars, many or few, 
that a man wins in life's battle. The struggle calls for and 
develops qualities of character of immensely greater signi- 
ficance. It is not implied that financial success is an un- 
failing index of moral strength; few Pittsburg millionaires 



60 SOCIALISM 

have been canonized. Yet by and large it is true that the 
industrial organization which makes each tub stand on its 
own bottom has by its disciplinary and selective action de- 
veloped the homely virtues of industry and thrift, the qual- 
ities of insight and initiative which compel success. There 
is no monopoly in these goods of character. One man's 
more does not mean another's less. 

It is also true that life's choicest gifts, love and honor 
and consecration to others' service, the glory of the sunset 
and the peace of the midnight stars, are goods not bought 
with a price, and goods as close within the reach of the cot- 
tage as of the mansion. Not that material goods may be 
dispensed with: it is necessary to live before it is possible 
to live well, and to offer to a man who asks for bread, 
free access to a gallery of old masters, is empty mockery. 
Starvation is as fatal to aspiration as surfeit. But once 
this minimum is secured, it rests with the individual to de- 
termine whether he will live for his neighbors' eyes or by 
his own, whether he will devote his means to competitive 
display and conspicuous waste, or will seek to develop his 
own personality. By all means let us strive to insure for 
every man and woman the possibility of making an ade- 
quate living, but do not let us forget, as the socialist, like 
the multi-millionaire, is prone to forget, that making a 
living is not living. 

A final source of error in the socialist arraignment is the 
disregard of the outstanding facts in the relation of men to 
their tools. Neither the weaknesses nor the strength of 
human nature will ever permit this earth to harbor a flaw- 
less social order. The weaknesses of human nature will not 
permit it; however cunningly devised the institutions, the 
Old Adam will break through and wreak havoc. The Uto- 
pian fallacy dies hard, that hidden in some undiscovered 
Atlantis or shrouded in the mists of the future there may 
be found an ideal social organization which man, naturally 
perfect, will be able to work without creak or friction. It 



THE INDICTMENT CONSIDERED 61 

is true of course that human nature is not an unvarying 
quantity, and that the reflex action of institutions on men 
is as important as the action of men on institutions. The 
current stress on the responsibihty of society for individual 
ills marks a wholesome reaction from the atomistic attitude 
which threw on the pauper or the criminal the whole re- 
sponsibility for his shortcoming. Yet, as is the way with 
reactions, it has already gone to an extreme, and at present 
we are in danger of losing sight of the responsibility of the 
individual by shouldering all the blame on that intangible 
and ungrieving entity Society, absolving A by holding 
B and C at fault and B by A's and C's neglect. 

Nor will the strength of human nature, the ceaseless 
striving for betterment, any more than its weaknesses, ever 
permit this faultily faultless perfection. In the future as 
in the past progress must be rooted in divine discontent. 
The goal ever fades into the distance; every step upward 
opens new horizons; achievement always lags behind con- 
ception. If ever the voice of the critic is hushed, it will 
mean that society has attained not perfection but stagna- 
tion. That finality is impossible is no reason for folding 
the hands and acquiescing in the present ills, but it is a 
reason for disregarding the factious criticism which would 
have us scrapheap civilization because with all our progress 
there yet remain many a blot to be removed and many 
a manful fight to be waged. 



CHAPTER IV 

UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 
I. THE UTOPIAN ANALYSIS 

Modern socialists, we have seen, are most at one in charg- 
ing that the times are out of joint. As to how this evil situa- 
tion arose and how it is to be set right, their variances 
are manifold, and a complete presentation would involve 
a study of a score of separate systems. The exceptionally 
imijortant difiFerences in theory and tactics between Marx 
and his immediate forerunners have, however, dwarfed the 
differences among the latter, and made it possible to classify 
them all in one group — the Utopians. The cleavage be- 
tween Utopian and scientific or Marxian socialism is prob- 
ably not so deep as has been contended by some exponents 
of Marxism, convinced that the date of the master's advent 
marks the year One of the Hegirafrom Capitalism; much 
that has usually been ascribed to Marx is found in germ, at 
least, among his predecessors. Yet the distinction is a con- 
venient one and broadly justified, and accordingly it will be 
adopted as the basis of the ensuing discussion. 

Utopian socialism is the connecting link between the 
bourgeois radicalism of the end of the eighteenth century 
and the proletarian revolutionarism of the nineteenth. 
Just as at its close it takes on a Marxian tinge, at its 
beginning it shades off into the iconoclasm of the French 
Enlightenment. The majority of the Utopian writers from 
Mably and Morelly to Fourier and Owen share the precon- 
ceptions which underlay the thinking of the political and 
religious radicals of their day. 



\ 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 63 

Foundational was their belief that God, or Nature, had 
ordained all things to serve the happiness of mankind. 
Adam Smith's faith in the " invisible hand," or the Physio- 
cratic assumption of "the settled course of material facts 
tending beneficently to the highest welfare of the human 
race," ^ is paralleled by Morelly's belief that Nature had 
aimed at the promotion of general happiness, ^ and by the 
declaration of Fourier half a century later that "God has 
done well all that he has done; . . . His providence would 
be imperfect if he had devised a social system which 
should not satisfy the needs and secure the happiness of 
every people, age, and sex."^ From this belief there were 
deduced as corollaries the conceptions of codes and laws 
of Nature, somewhere hidden, and of natural rights which 
were every man's due by birth. 

Yet everywhere misery and oppression and error reigned. 
Clearly the beneficent design of Nature had not yet been 
carried out. The explanation was that in the past, through 
ignorance or through knavery, men had created cus- 
toms or institutions which prevented the natural tendency 
to progress and happiness from operating to its full ex- 
tent. In the political sphere they had set up kings and 
nobles to be oppressors of their fellows, at best useless bar- 
nacles on the ship of state; in religion, priest-made supersti- 
tions bled men's purses and cramped their minds; in indus- 
try, gild monopoly and tariff privilege and the state's close 
check, grandmotherly at best, stepmotherly at worst, fet- 
tered and thwarted production and exchange. At the bar 
of individual reason, tested by the touchstone of Nature's 
law, these institutions one and all stood condemned. Dide- 
rot summed the indictment in a comprehensive challenge : 
"Examine all political, civil, and religious institutions with 
care; unless I am greatly in error you will discover that for 

^ Veblen, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xiii, p. 127. 

* Code de la Nature, p. 26. 

' Le Nouveau Monde, p. 31 ; Manuscrits, p. 129, in Gide, op. cit., p. 48. 



J6 



64 SOCIALISM 

centuries the human race has bowed under a yoke imposed 
upon it by a set of rogues," ^ a passage which can be equaled 
in its dogmatism and its lack of the historic sense only by 
Cabet's declaration: "And yet how could the social organ- 
ization escape being vicious, since it was the work, not of 
a single man and a single assembly creating a complete and 
coordinated plan, but of time, of successive generations 
adding piece by piece; not of reflection and discussion, but 
of chance or experiment; not of ^visdom or experience, but 
of ignorance and barbarism; not of virtue and the desire to 
promote the happiness of the People, but of vice, violence, 
conquest, and the lust of oppression."^ The conception of 
the continuity of history, the recegnition of the useful func- 
tions which the institutions denounced had once performed 
in the world's economy, were foreign to the majority of the 
thinkers of this age. 

The evils which arose in ignorance or knavery are per- 
petuated by the influence of circumstances and training. 
The belief in the all-powerful effect of environment which 
pervades the thinking of the whole school becomes an 
obsession with Robert Owen, forming the most important 
part of his theoretical stock-in-trade. "Any general char- 
acter," he declares, "from the best to the worst, from the 
most ignorant to the most enlightened, may be given to 
any community, even to the world at large, by the applica- 
tion of proper means; which means are to a great extent 
at the command and under the control of those who have 
influence in the affairs of men. . . . Their predecessors 
might have given them the habits of ferocious cannibalism, 
or the highest known benevolence and intelligence."^ 

* Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville, CEuvres, ii. 

^ Voyage en Icarie, p. 308. Cf. Owen: "... the irrational principles 
by which the world has been hitherto governed [New View of Society, 
p. 25]; . . . the invention of religion, private property, and marriage 
... all founded in opposition to Nature's law" [New Moral World, 
i, pp. 129, 75]. 

' New View of Society, pp. 19, 91. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 65 

These "necessarian circumstantialist " ^ views were of great 
importance not merely for the theoretical analysis but for 
the projects of reform which Owen afterwards deduced. 

The socialist and the individualist leaders of this time, 
it has been maintained, shared largely the same general 
preconceptions. The parting of the ways came with the 
specific deductions from these general assumptions. Both 
believed in an organization of society where Nature's forces 
should have free play; both fought against the customs and 
institutions in the existing order which prevented this free 
play. But to Adam Smith or Quesnay the ideal economic 
organization was production on a basis of private property 
and individual competition, with the minimum of state 
supervision ; ^ the evils, the survivals of gild and mercantil- 
ist privilege which hampered the full development of this 
system. To Fourier or Owen or Cabet, the ideal was the 
socialization of property, in varying degrees; the evil to be 
combated, that very "obvious and simple system of nat- 
ural liberty" on which their predecessors had set their hopes. 

^ Cf. the many-labeled characterization of Owen by Adin Ballou 
(Noyes, History of American Socialisfjis, p. 88) i " IiVyeg tf s n ^Hy seVenty- 
five; in knowledge and experience superabu»dan?;"in Benevolence of 
heart tranfecendfental; in hoaesty witfequt disguise; in philanthropy un- 
limited; in religion a sceptic; in theology a Pantheist; in metaphysics a 
necessarian circumstantialist; in morals a universal excusionist; in general 
cx)nduct a philosophic non-resisCSbt; in socialism a communist; in hope a 
terrestrial elysianist; in practical business a methodist; in deportment an 
unequivocal gentleman." 

2 "All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus 
completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty 
establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not 
violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest 
his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition 
with those of any other men, or order of men. The sovereign is completely 
discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must al- 
ways be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance 
of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient: the 
duty of superintending the industry of private people and of directing it 
towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society." 
— Wealth of Nations, Bohn edition, ii, p. 207. 



66 SOCIALISM 

Contradictory as these propositions were, they were 
equally natural, if not equally defensible, deductions from 
the common principles, applied to different industrial 
conditions. Adam Smith wrote in the days of handicraft; 
Robert Owen saw the light in his experience of the work- 
ings of large-scale capitalist production. The socialist agreed 
with his individualist brother that the interests of society 
and of the individual would prove identical, given the 
proper conditions and environment; he ^ffered in bracket- 
ing private property with feudal privilege and tariff exac- 
tion as items in the conditions which must be held unfav- 
orable, and buttressed his claim by pointing to the anarchy 
and waste which pervaded the societies dominated by indi- 
vidual competition. He upheld the ij^tural right of every 
man to the full produce of his labor, but maintained that 
this right was as much infringed by capitalist appropria- 
tion as by feudal exaction, and that freedom of competition 
meant merely the freedom of the strong to exploit the 
weak. 

The analysis here indicated was not carried out in very 
extended or systematic fashion by the Utopian writers. 
They preferred anathematizing the existing order to ex- 
plaining it, and building the castles of the future to explor- 
ing the foundations of the past. It is possible, however, to 
present a general outline of the two systems, the Fourier- 
ist and the Saint-Simonist, which offer the most compre- 
hensive analyses of modern industry. 
J Fourier and his school, in their explanation of the short- 
comings of capitalism, laid stress chiefly on its inefficiency 
in production and exchange. The chief cause of the misery 
which prevailed was that not enough wealth was produced, 
or was produced only to be wasted in the process of distri- 
bution. For this failure in production they accounted, in 
the first place, by the fact that the bulk of society's dispos- 
able forces are not employed at all or are employed only in 
useless or destructive labor. Standing armies diverted hun- 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 67 

dreds of thousands of the sturdiest youths from industry 
in time of peace and carried devastation broadcast in time 
of war; the idle rich made no pretense at production; 
legions of tramps, sharpers, prostitutes, thieves, were in 
open rebellion against society, as unproductive as the mag- 
istrates and police set up to protect private property 
against their depredations; lawyers and philosophical 
sophists and cranks were busied in sterile debate; armies of 
customs officials, spies, and tax-gatherers were absorbed in 
collecting the nation's revenue from private individuals. 
All in all these and other parasites on the real workers made 
up two thirds of the population.^ 

Nor were the minority who were engaged in useful indus- 1 
try marshaled to the best advantage. There was no attempt ' 
to fit capacity to task, no opportunity given the young to 
discover in what direction their talent lay and to train 
themselves for that lifework. Work was made repellent 
rather than attractive, so that the best efforts of the workers 
were never called forth; the passions were repressed rather 
than utilized.* The scale of production was usually too 
small to permit economical utilization of the working 
force. ^ There was no cooperation between the different 
establishments in the same industry, no rational unified 
control of production to adjust supply to demand.^ The 
family, which was the existing economic and educational 
unit, had neither the breadth of view, the disinterested- 
ness, nor the permanence necessary for its task. 

In yet a third direction Fourier sought the explanation 
of society's poverty — in the exploitation of both the pro- „-- 
ducer and the consumer by the middleman. It is especially 
on Commerce that Fourier pours out all the vials of his 

1 Fourier, Uniti Vniverselle, iii, 173-179; in Gide. op. cit., 89-94; Con- 
siderant, Destinee Sociale, i, 56-61. 

* Considerant, op. cit., p. 100. 

' Unite Universelle, iii, p. 128 seq. 

* Considerant, op. cit., p. 63. 



>>, 



H 



68 SOCIALISM 

wrath : vampire, hydra, corsair, serpent, spider, are among 
the milder epithets applied. ^ The middleman, who should 
be the servant of the producer and consumer, has become 
their master, buying cheap and selling dear, levying tribute 
on the necessities of both. Hordes of superfluous merchants 
infest every branch of commerce, increasing the cost of all 
commodities by their insensate competition, economizing 
only by adulteration and trickery. ^ 

Less stressed is the doctrine of the exploitation of the 
workers by the employers. Wage-labor, Fourier declares, 
is indirect servitude. There are but three methods of in- 
ducing men to work: the slavemaster's whip of the past, 
the attractiveness of work in the phalanstery of the future, 
and in the present the compulsion of misery and famine.' 
There is no solidarity of interests between master and 
man: the wage- workers form a floating population whose 
interests are antagonistic to those of the possessors of 
wealth and the instruments of production. The mechan- 
ism of their exploitation is not developed at length; passing 
references are made to the depression of wages by the in- 
crease of population, and the introduction of machinery.* 

Little attempt is made to forecast the future by an in- 
vestigation of the forces at work in existing society. The 
most notable contribution in this direction, that of Fourier, 
is as interesting in its contrasts to the later Marxian doc- 
trine as in its likenesses. It diflfers sharply in being pre- 
sented not as an inevitable development but as the alterna- 
tive to the adoption of his own short-cut proposals; it is 
strikingly similar in being deduced as much from an abso- 
lute theory of historical progress as from a study of con- 
crete fact. The theory, as developed at length by Fourier 

« Units Universelle, ii, 217; Considerant, 87, 93. 

» Nouveau Monde Industriel, chaps. 43, 44; TMorie des Qualre MouvS" 
ments, 2d edition, p. 373. 

' Units Universelle, iv, 126; Considerant, op. cit., p. 102. > 

* Considerant, op. cit., p. 69. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 69 

and his closest disciple, Considerant, is simply the oft-recur- 
ring conception that the life of humanity is parallel to the 
life of the individual, passing through the stages of infancy, 
youth, maturity, and old age.^ In each of these stages the 
same rise and fall are observable. At present we are^n the 
first stage, and in the fifth of the eight periods into which 
it is divided — primitive Edenism, savagery, patriarchism, 
barbarism, civilization, guaranteeism, sociantism, and har- 
monism. This period. Civilization, is itself marked by the 
same rhythmic development: we are now on the down 
grade, the descending vibration, and consequently may ex- 
pect to see developments analogous to those in the ascend- 
ing period. 2 If present tendencies continue we shall see the 
establishment of a new feudalism, financial rather than 
military, following on the gradual concentration of wealth 
in the hands of a few and the mcrease of misery and help- 
lessness on the part of the many.^ The new barons would 

^ " Everything that exists, vegetable, animal, man, world, and nebula, 
is subject to one general law of life and death." — Considerant, op. cit., i, 
p. 136. 

^ "The second part of the period, the ascending vibration, should be 
inversely analogous to the first, just as the two later periods in man's life 
present phenomena inversely analogous to those of the first two. I say 
analogous and not identical, for dawn and twilight, infancy and senil- 
ity, the beginning and the end of all development, are analogous but 
not exactly identical. In accordance with this principle, deduced from 
the general theory of development established above, we may expect 
to see civilization, which has begun by feudalism, end in feudahsm." — ■ 
Ibid., 189-90. 

' "Masters of the field of battle, the great manufacturers, merchants, 
proprietors, who had marched at the head of the popular movement 
against the feudal nobility, constitute ... a new power. . . . The power 
of great fortunes, multiplied by joint-stock concentration, by large-scale 
production, the employment of machinery, and the operations cf great 
trading-houses, crushes a host of middle and small-sized producers and 
traders. ... In our stage of civilization the proletariat and pauperism 
increase with the population, and faster still, as a direct result of the pro- 
gress of industry. . . . All progress in the system of civilization is for the 
worse; prosperity brings an extension of the social cancer, and our indus- 
trial organization is a huge machine which makes poor and proletarians." 
— Ibid., pp. 193-95, 250-52. 



70 SOCL\LISM 

organize both manufacturing and agriculture in systematic 
fashion, putting an end to the anarchy that reigns to-day, 
and assuring subsistence to their dependents.^ Then the 
state would step in, and the stage of guaranteeism would 
be in full swing, developing step by step into sociantism 
and eventually into harmonism, Fourier's perfect ideal. 
But, as noted above, this is only the worse alternative : 
thanks to Fourier's discovery of the associative system, it 
is possible to skip all the intervening stages and advance 
forthwith into harmonism.^ 

The analysis made by Fourier may serve as typical in 
essentials of the Utopian attitude. Saint-Simonism needs 
separate consideration because forming in many important 
aspects an intermediate step between Utopianism pure and 
undefiled and the scientific socialism of Marx and his fol- 
lowers. More clearly than any of the contemporary social- 
istic schools it shows the possibility of evolution from an 
orthodox liberalism to socialism. Saint-Simon himself 
never reached a position which can be properly termed 
socialistic. For the greater part of his stormy and restless 
life he fought as a soldier in the warfare against feudal and 
ecclesiastical privilege, championing the claim of the cap- 
tain of industry and the scientist to the primacy justly for- 
feited by the noble and the priest. In this exalting of indus- 
trialism his position was very much that of his more famous 
disciple, Auguste Comte. In his further development he 
may be said to be akin to Carlyle, in the stress laid on the 

* Cf. Ghent, Benevolent Feudalism, 19. 

* Cf. a similar forecast in Pecqueur, Dee IntSrets du commerce, de Vin- 
dimtrie et de V agriculture (1838). 

[From guaranteeism] " society will march rapidly toward the organiza- 
tion of the associative regime which we are about to describe, and which 
we can attain at once, without passing through the stages which separate 
us. . . ." Considerant, p. 217. 

" We have seen the course that industry would follow in the event of real 
progress and anterior to the discovery of the passionate series. ... As 
we are going to skip the sixth and seventh periods, and raise ourselves im- 
mediately to the eighth. . . ." Fourier, Nouveau Monde, pp. 515-530. 



UTOPIAN SOCLILISM 71 

necessity of central organization and expert direction to 
make the most of the industrial forces and the industrial 
opportunities of the new era, in the aristocratic hope of 
salvation from above, from heroes or scientific hierarchy, 
in the object set forth of "improving as rapidly as possible 
the lot of the poorest and most numerous class," and in the 
conception of an industrialism permeated by moral and 
religious ideals. 

The school of Saint-Simon gave the master's doctrines 
a definitely socialistic extension. In their analysis of the 
existing order they advanced beyond his criticism of feudal 
exactions, and found the source of social ills in the persist- 
ence of private property, last and worst of the outworn 
privileges inherited from the past. The right of private 
property is simply the right to receive an income that has 
not been earned, the right to levy toll on the industry of 
others. The capitalist and the landed proprietor are the 
depositaries of the instruments of labor; it is their function 
to allot them to the real workers through the processes 
which give rise to rent and interest. They take advantage 
of their monopoly to force the workers to yield to them 
a share of the toil. The entrepreneur suffers from this 
exploitation in like manner, though not in like degree, 
with the workman of the rank and file. For the latter the 
capitalist's oppression is little improvement over slavery. 
"If the exploitation of man by man no longer bears the 
brutal aspect which characterized it in antiquity ... it 
is none the less real. The workman is not like the slave, 
the direct property of his master; the terms on which he 
works are fixed by contract; but is this transaction a free 
one on the part of the workman? It is not, since he is 
obliged to accept on pain of death, reduced as he is to look 
for each day's food to the pay of the day before." ^ 

' Erposition de la doctrine sarnt-simonienne, 6me seance. Pecqueur a 
few years later echoes the same complaint {Theorie nouvelle d'economie 
sociale), while in England Bray and Thompson, followers to some extent 



72 SOCIALISM 

Nor does the evil end here. Under a regime of private 
property, production is as badly organized as distribution 
is unjustly effected. For, as matters go, the allotment of 
control of the instruments of production depends on the 
hazard of birth. There is no guarantee that the men most 
fitted to direct industry will be given the opportunity; the 
partial and blind working of the custom of inheritance 
makes impossible any scientific adaptation of capacity to 
task. "No broad general views determine production: it is 
carried on without insight or foresight; here it brings glut, 
there it brings dearth. It is to this lack of a general view 
of the needs of consumption and of the resources of pro- 
duction that we must ascribe industrial crises. If in this 
important branch of social activity we see manifested so 
much disturbance and disorder, it is because the allotment 
of the instruments of labor is made by isolated individuals, 
ignorant at once of the needs of industry and of the men 
and the means capable of meeting those needs; here and 
nowhere else is the root of the evil." ^ 

Saint-Simonism marks a notable advance over the aver- 
age Utopian view in its firm grasp of the continuity of his- 
tory. The future, it is maintained, is constituted by the 
last terms of a series of which the first terms make up 
the past, and from these earlier terms the later may be de- 
duced. ^ Each period holds in itself the germ of its successor. 
Progress comes by the alternation of critical and construct- 
ive periods, the critical characterized by anarchy and un- 
restrained egotism, the constructive by obedience and or- 
der and unity of thought and action. We are now living in 
a critical age, but are to be led by Saint-Simonism into the 
ultimate constructive era; the spirit of association, which 

of Owen, attempt to work out a doctrine of exploitation based on the 
Ricardian theory of value, their work, however, failing to produce any 
more direct effect than to help suggest to Karl Marx his theory of surplus 
value. Cf. Menger's Right to the Whole Produce of Labour. 

1 Exposition, etc., pp. 191-92. 

* (Euvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfaniin, i, p. 122. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 7S 

x. 

in the past has gradually won ground from the spirit of 
antagonism, spreading from the family to the city and the 
city to the nation, will become world-wide in scope and 
give the keynote to the dawning era : the aim of the future 
will be the exploitation of the globe by man associated 
with man. This transformation is inevitable, but inevit- 
able only because the triumph of Saint-Simonist doctrine 
is inevitable; like all social transformations it is dependent 
on a philosophical development : " Every social regime is an 
application of a system, and consequently it is impossible 
to institute a new regime without having previously es- 
tablished the new philosophical system to which it should 
correspond." ^ 

The most striking feature of the Utopians' position is the 
prevailing lack of understanding of the way in which 
social institutions are rooted deep in the life and character 
of a people. This failure to grasp the essential relativity of 
political or industrial systems to the whole environment 
leads, in their judgments of the past, to hasty and unmeas- 
ured condemnation of customs and institutions, if not in 
all things adapted to the needs of the present, as the inven- 
tions of fools or rogues. It leads, in their criticism of the 
present, to proposals for the sudden and sweeping abolition 
of the industrial system which the men of the western 
world have slowly and painfully wrought out to meet their 
needs and fit their powers. It leads, in their planning for 
the future, to suggestions for the erection of new social 
structures, built to scale from carefully worked-out plans, 
wherein every detail of front, rear, and side elevation has 
been provided beforehand. There is little conception of 
social growth and development: once Nature's ideal sys- 
tem is discovered it may be stereotyped without limit. No- 
thing can show more completely the difference between 
the preconceptions — or the prejudices — of their time and 
of our post-Darwinian day than the sentence quoted from 

* (Euvres, xix, p. 23. 



74 SOCIALISM 

Cabet: " And yet how could the social organization escape 
being vicious, since it was the work, not of a single man 
and a single assembly creating a complete and coordinate 
plan, but of time, of successive generations adding piece 
by piece." ^ To the Utopian this was valid and serious 
criticism; to the men of the twentieth century it is sheer 
irony. 

The analysis presented by Owen and Fourier is curiously 
dualistic. On one side they set up a perfect human nature, 
passions preordained to harmony; on the other, Satanic 
social institutions, on which rest the sole blame for the fall 
of man. Human nature is idealized out of recognition : the 
extent to which the social environment is but its reflex is 
overlooked. So far as the details of the analysis are con- 
cerned, there is much truth in the charges of waste and 
misdirection laid at the door of competition, but, as was 
suggested above, the complaints against the middleman, 
which form the gravamen of Fourier's indictment, are seri- 
ously exaggerated for lack of appreciation of the time and 
place utilities commerce confers. 

The school of Saint-Simon does not share this lack of 
historic sense. Much of what is best in the Positivists' con- 
ception of the progress man has made through the ages 
and their appreciation of the provisional service rendered 
by the institutions of the past maybe traced through Comte 
to Saint-Simon. Whether the development was ascribed 
to the proper forces is another matter: Saint-Simon over- 
emphasized the power of ideas as much as Marx under- 
valued it. The exploitation theory of the Saint-Simonist 
school is based on as flimsy foundations as the doctrine of 
the more strictly Utopian sects. The claim that the pos- 
session of capital and of land enables their OTivTiers to take 
toll of the workers' product, to deprive them of part of 
the fruit of their labor, overlooks the elementary fact that 
this product is not solely the "workers* product," but is 

^ Supra, p. 64. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 75 

due to the cooperation of the land and capital borrowed 
as well as to the labor applied. To insist that the allot- 
ment of any share whatever of the product to those who 
have provided the instruments essential to its making 
constitutes exploitation, is indefensible. It may be that in 
specific cases the methods by which the capitalist and the 
landed proprietor acquired their properties have been 
questionable; that is a matter entirely aside from the ques- 
tion of the propriety of return to capital in general. It may 
be that the owners of the instruments of labor have used 
their power to extort an unjustly large share of the joint 
product, but this again is a matter for specific and indi- 
vidual discussion, and, in the absence of the possibility of 
determining the exact contribution each factor has made 
to the product, the interpretation of justice and injustice 
must turn on considerations which the Saint-Simonist doc- 
trine does not raise. The criticism of the allotment of cap- 
ital by the accident of birth and inheritance has more 
plausibility. Aside, however, from the qualifications to be 
made in view of the extent to which the use of credit in 
modern business and the prevalence of joint-stock com- 
panies insure capacity securing control of capital, it should 
be borne in mind that the institution of inheritance finds 
its social justification not merely in its effect on the distri- 
bution of capital but in the incentive it provides to the 
formation of that capital in the first place. 

The root of the error in Saint-Simonist analysis is 
that it begins with the fund of capital goods already 
formed, instead of investigating the way in which the 
stimulus of private property and family solidarity has 
insured its steady accumulation. Nor is it enough to 
show that the present methods are humanly imperfect; 
it is necessary to show that better may be devised. 
And this, to his credit, the Utopian is always ready 
to attempt: there is no lack of ideal commonwealths 
proposed. 



76 SOCIALISM 



II. THE UTOPIAN IDEAL 

From the spectacle of disorder and misery which the pre- 
sent order exhibited, the Utopian socialist turned with 
pleasure to the contemplation of the ideal commonwealth 
that was to be, "certain of the possibility of realizing a so- 
cial organization which would universalize wealth, happi- 
ness, and harmony, unify mankind and elevate them to the 
highest degree of power, beauty, splendor, and glory . . . 
calm the suffering of the peoples, deliver the unfortunate 
from the anguish of hunger and misery and the fortunate 
from their egotism, and bring about a marriage upon earth 
between work and pleasure, between riches and kindly feel- 
ing, between virtue and happiness." ^ Across the Channel a 
brother enthusiast was announcing in modest circus-poster 
style that "a new heaven and a new earth are about to be 
opened to the astonished and wondering world." ^ No two 
of these visions of the future Eden agreed in detail. They 
may, however, be grouped into three main classes. The first 
group of ideal societies adopts the independent community 
as the unit of organization, and is characterized by the 
utmost scope for individual liberty; the other groups, one 
collectivist, the other communist, make the state the unit 
of organization, and exalt authority above freedom. 

In the first group doubtless the palm for completeness of 
detail and marvelous minor ingenuities must be conceded 
to that half -mad genius, Charles Fourier. His ideal society 
is pictured with a gusto and a childlike faith which disarm 
criticism and with a coherence of detail that almost wins 
credence. The unit of organization is the phalanx, a com- 
munity of 1500 to 1600 persons, devoted in slight degree to 
manufacturing,^ but chiefly to agriculture, or rather horti- 

^ Considerant, op. cit., ii, p. xxxii. 

* Owen, New Moral World, i, p. 10. 

* " God distributed only such an allowance of attraction to the work of 
manufacturing as corresponds to a quarter of the time that the associat 
ire man can devote to labor." — Nouveau Monde, p. 151, in Gide, p. 118. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 77 

culture and arboriculture. The community is housed in a 
great central building, the phalanstery, containing the 
workshops and the living-apartments, wherein the econ- 
omies of consumption in common give comforts and lux- 
uries unknown in the scattered households of the present. 
The communities are as far as possible self-contained, but 
exchange directly with one another their peculiar pro- 
ducts. 

It is in his method of organizing and stimulating pro- 
duction that Fourier is most original and most naive. The 
force which should rule society, he has discovered, is the 
same force which holds the planets in order — attraction,^ 
the free play of passion. For centuries moralists have con- 
demned men's passions, whereas what they should have 
condemned was the artificial social environment which 
alone made those passions work for evil. Change that en- 
vironment, put man in the phalanx for which God designed 
him, and the passions will be harnessed to society's service. 
Does the unregenerate man to-day find work repulsive? 
That is because the work is prolonged to monotony; the 
papillonne or butterfly passion makes him crave variety. 
In the phalanx he will engage by turn in six or eight occupa- 

' "Chance counts for half in the success of a man of genius. ... I 
myself paid tribute to it when I discovered the calculus of attraction. . . . 
An apple was for me, as for a Newton, a guiding compass. For this apple, 
which is worthy of fame, a traveler who dined with me at Fevrier's res- 
taurant in Paris paid the sum of fourteen sous. I had just come from a 
district where the same kind of apples, and even superior ones, sold for a 
half-liard, that is to say, more than a hundred for fourteen sous. I was so 
struck by this difference of price between places having the same temper- 
ature, that I began to suspect that there must be something radically 
wrong in the industrial mechanism, and hence originated the researches, 
which, after four years, caused me to discover the theory of series of indus- 
trial groups, and, consequently, the law of universal motion missed by 
Newton. ... I have since noticed that we can reckon four apples as cele- 
brated, two for the disasters which they caused, Adam's apple and that 
of Paris, and two for the services they rendered to science, Newton's apple 
and mine. Does not the quartette of apples deserve a page in history?" 
— Manuscrits, year 1851, p. 17, in Gide, op. dt., p. 17. 



78 SOCIALISM 

tions a day, and find delight in all.^ Do men intrigue and 
plot, and bow to green-eyed jealousy? Face the existence 
of the cabalist passion; admit that God did not implant so 
mighty a force in men's breasts without intending it to be 
used for good: organize the workers of the phalanx, or 

' "The chief source of light-heartedness among Harmonians is the fre- 
quent change of sessions. . . . Let us delineate this variation by a table 
exhibiting a day of two Harmonians, one poor and one rich. 

hugas day in the month of June. 
Hours. 
At 33^ rising, getting ready. 

4 attendance at stable group. 

5 attendance at a gardeners' group. 

7 BREAKFAST. 

7j^ attendance at the reapers' group. 

9}^ attendance at the vegetable-growers' group under cover. 
11 attendance at the stable series. 

1 DINNER. 

2 attendance at the rural series. 

4 attendance at a manufacturing group. 

6 attendance at the watering series. 

8 attendance at 'Change. 

8j^ SUPPER. 

9 attendance at resorts of amusement. 
10 bedtime. 

Mondors day in summer. 
Hours. 

Sleep from 103^ in the evening to 3 o'clock in the morning. 
At 33^ rising, getting ready. 

4 court of public levee, news of the night. 

43^ the delite, first meal, followed by the industrial parade. 

53^ attendance at the hunting group. 

7 attendance at the fishing group. 

8 BREAKFAST, newspapers. 

9 attendance at an agricultural group under cover. 
10 attendance at mass. 

10^ attendance at the pheasantry group. 
113^ attendance at the library. 

1 DINNER. 

23i attendance at the group of cold green-houses. 

4 attendance at the group of exotic plants. 

5 attendance at the group of fish-ponds. 

6 luncheon in the fields. 

63^ attendance at the group of merinoes. 

8 attendance at 'Change. 

9 SUPPER, fifth repast. 

93^ attendance at court of the arts, ball, theatre, receptions. 
lOj^ bedtime." 

— Nouveau Monde, pp. 67-68; Gide, pp. 167-168. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 79 

rather let them organize themselves as their preferences 
dictate, in countless series and groups, — the series con- 
sisting of men joined together by identity of passion for 
some activity, such as the cultivation of a fruit, and the 
groups of the subdivisions devoted to each variety of this 
fruit, — and set these series and groups in rivalry one with 
another, let them intrigue and cabal to heart's content in 
their striving to surpass their fellows. 

Is self-interest the bane of our present order? Accept it, 
and so contrive a system of distribution that it shall be 
harmonized with the collective interest. In this plan of dis- 
tribution Fourier is less radical than many of his successors. 
To a certain extent, it is true, he adopts the principle of dis- 
tribution according to need, assigning every member of the 
community a minimum of consumption goods, irrespective 
of merit or demerit, relying on the attractiveness of pha- 
lanx labor to prevent malingering. But in the main he 
favors a complicated system of payment in proportion to 
services reTndered. The share of each series in the communal 
dividend varies directly with its importance in fostering 
harmony and inversely with the pleasurability of the work. 
This share again is divided into twelve parts, of which five 
are assigned to labor and four to talent — the number of 
points each member in the service should be assigned under 
each head being fixed by the exact and watchful apprecia- 
tion of his fellows — and three are assigned to capital, for 
Fourier permits both private property and interest, within 
the limitations of associative use. Every member of the 
phalanx is to work in several series, so that it is not to his 
interest to demand an unfair share for any one, and receive 
remuneration under each of the heads of capital, labor, and 
talent, in the different occupations, so that he has no mot- 
ive for objecting to the proportions assigned. Throughout, 
the phalanx is substituted for the family, on the one hand, 
and the state, on the other, as the unit of organization. To 
the family, especially, Fourier assigns a very minor role; in 



80 SOCIALISM 

strict conformity to his doctrine of the sovereignty of pas- 
sion and attraction, he develops a thoroughgoing system of 
free love; the woman of the future, assured of economic 
support, is to be left free to choose permanent marriage, 
temporary marriage, or promiscuous intercourse. 

Robert Owen's busy life afforded little of the solitude in 
which Fourier spun dreams. By contrast his proposals are 
bare and crude. Like Fourier he advocates as the unit of 
organization a community, varying from five hundred to 
three thousand members, engaged in both agriculture and 
manufacturing and united in voluntary federation with the 
tens of thousands of similar communities that are to cover 
the civilized world and make the ancient state organiza- 
tions superfluous. In this community there is a division of 
labor based on age : from the third year, when the parents 
resign charge, to the twentieth, the younger generation are 
receiving that formative education on which Owen's en- 
vironment theories led him to lay such store, an education 
increasingly industrial in character towards the close of the 
period ; the young men from twenty to twenty -five perform 
the bulk of the productive work, those from twenty -five to 
thirty the distribution, while the men of thirty to forty 
manage the interior administration and those above forty 
the external dealings of the community.^ Private property 
vanishes entirely; the rule of distribution is to be stark 
equality. 

The other socialist schools, while equally convinced that 
men were predestined to perfect happiness on earth, found 
more need for authority in the mechanism by which that 
happiness was to be secured. Doubtless Nature had 
planned an ideal commonwealth, but not a self-propelling, 

1 Outline of the Rational System. Cf. New Moral World, i, 221, for an- 
other arrangement: domestic duties to the age of twelve, production of 
wealth from twelve to twenty-one, its preservation and distribution from 
twenty-one to twenty-five, forming the character of the rising generation 
from twenty-five to thirty-five, government from thirty-five to forty-five, 
and thereafter the search after new knowledge. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 81 

self-adjusting one. It might be necessary to compel men to 
be free. Authority implied organization and organization 
the centralized state, so the state rather than the commune 
provides the framework of their New Jerusalems. 

Saint-Simon, too thorough an aristocrat to doubt that 
the organization of society must come from above, had 
preached an aristocracy of capacity to succeed the played- 
out aristocracy of privilege, scientists and captains of in- 
dustry replacing prelates and feudal lords. The organiza- 
tion which his followers proposed, developing his ideas, was 
designed to complete the work of the Revolution in opening 
a career to talent, to adjust capacity, task, and reward in 
the most scientific manner pt>ssible. All artificial inequal- 
ities must be removed, especially the handicap imposed by 
the institution of private inheritance and the consequent 
unfair start given a few of the competitors in life's race. 
The' state is to be the final owner of all the means of pro- 
duction, the universal successor; the individual is to enjoy 
only a life-interest in the share assigned him. An elaborate 
hierarchy will study the capacities of all children, train 
them for the occupations for which they seem best fitted, 
and start them out with the equipment necessary for the 
chosen career. 

It is grudgingly conceded that this amateur provid- 
ence may occasionally be mistaken, but on the whole its 
ability, disinterestedness, and elevation above the cramp- 
ing details of specific industries will enable it to marshal 
the state's working force to the best possible advantage: 
if a man does not obtain the instrument of labor which 
he desires, it is because the authorities, competent men, 
have recognized that he is better able to perform some 
other function. To secure the solidarity and enthusiasm 
essential for smooth working, the centripetal force of relig- 
ion is to be employed, tlie state to become a church, with 
a New Christianity preaching positivism, the rehabilitation 
of the flesh and the sanctity of labor. The allotment of 



82 SOCIALISM 

work according to capacity is complemented by payment 
according to merit. 

There were still inner citadels of privilege unstormed. 
Robespierre had fought against the inheritance of the 
privileges of rank, the Saint-Simonist fought against the 
inheritance of the privileges of wealth; Cabet, following 
Morelly and Babeuf , pushed the demand for equality further 
and sought to counteract the inheritance of ability.^ The 
state towers higher and higher above the dead level of citi- 
zen equality : the state through its officials, elected by the 
people at large or by each industry, or selected by rotation, 
decides what and how much shall be produced, trains the 
workers and assigns their duties, sometimes permitting a 
measure of choice tempered by competitive examination. 
The centralization of production and the abolition of 
money involve distribution of reward by a system of bar- 
rack rationing and throw into the hands of the state the 
power of determining consumption in the most minute de- 
tail. Equality drabs into uniformity: Babeuf will have all 
eat the same amount of the same kind of food; Cabet or- 
dains that all individuals in the same station shall wear the 
same kind of clothing, graciously permitting blondes and 
brunettes, however, to wear different shades, and ingen- 
iously attempting to combine the economies of large-scale 
ready-made production with comfort by arranging that 
all suits, hats and shoes shall be made in four or five differ- 
ent sizes, of elastic materials, so that they will fit several 
persons of different height and size.^ The same spirit is 

' " And you make no distinction for ability, intelligence, genius ? — 
No; are they not merely gifts of Nature? Would it be just to punish in 
any way him whom fortune has meanly endowed? Should not reason 
and society redress the inequality produced by blind chance? Is not the 
man whose superior ability makes him more useful fully recompensed by 
the satisfaction he derives from it ?" — Cabet, op. cit., p. 102. 

^ Ibid., p. 59, Cabet continues* "All the houses in the city havetabso- 
lutely the same interior, . . . they are, however, of three different sizes, 
with three, four, or five windows in front, for families below twelve. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 83 

manifested in the treatment of science and letters; the state 
is sole printer, and of course "the state prints none but 
good books"; so infallible is its censorship that it even 
burns all the ancient books which are considered dangerous 
or useless, differing, however, from Omar burning the 
library of Alexandria in that it was acting in humanity's 
interest instead of against it: "we light our fires to burn 
wicked books, while the brigands and fanatics lit theirs to 
burn innocent heretics."^ No serpent must be allowed in 
the communistic Eden : when mankind has found the right 
path again, it must never be permitted to run the risk of 
straying back into the wilderness of individualism. 

But it is useless to follow further the details of the ideal 
commonwealths devised by the socialists of this early day. 
Postponing for the present a discussion of the points the 
Utopian proposals possess in common with later socialist 
schemes, it may be worth while at this juncture to consider 
very briefly their distinctive features. Foremost is the 
assumption that it is necessary and possible to work out y / 
beforehand in the most minute detail a scheme for the com- 
plete ordering of our industrial affairs. Undoubtedly it is 
legitimate, in fact it is imperative, that the propounders of 
the new social dispensations should attempt to grapple 
with the most important problems their proposals involve. 
But in this laudable endeavor the Utopian goes to a meti- 
culous extreme, laying down rigid specifications for every 
contingency, omitting no least detail. Human nature is 

twenty-five, or forty persons respectively. When the family is still more 
numerous, as often happens, it occupies two contiguous and commun- 
icating houses; and as all the houses are alike the neighboring family 
ordinarily gives up its house voluntarily and takes another, or the magis- 
trate compels it to do so, unless the quiverful family can find two other 
houses vacant. In this case, the furniture being exactly the same, each 
family takes nothing but a few personal effects and leaves its house all 
furnished to take another furnished equally well." 
' Ibid., p. 127. 



84 SOCIALISM 

abstracted into a dependable regularity. No room is left 
for spontaneous growth. The long-sought social order leaps 
complete from the brain of its deviser. 

The plans of Fourier and Owen agree in making the small 
autonomous community the unit of organization. What- 
ever partial justification the extension of municipal activ- 
ities has given this emphasis on the commune, the passage 
of time has only brought into clearer relief the impossibil- 
ity of the plan in its wider aspects. The large-scale industry 
of to-day has far outgrown the bounds of the phalanstery; 
spontaneous cooperation links men in nation-wide and 
world-wide interdependence; at the outset the new society 
would be compelled to forfeit half the advantages and econ- 
omies open to competitive industry. The difficulties in- 
volved in arranging the commercial relations between these 
independent communities are not clearly realized; inequal- 
ity and competition will not be stamped out of the world 
merely by making the community, instead of the individual 
or corporation, the business unit. In his provisions for the 
organization of production Fourier makes many acute sug- 
gestions, but the fantastic psychology on which his main 
proposals rest is a very unstable base for any industrial 
structure, while its ethical implications include the utmost 
sexual license and the degradation of the family. In the 
free play given to passion, the doctrine of laissez-faire is 
carried to its most indefensible extreme. Fourier, it is true, 
has put his finger on a weak spot of modern industry by his 
indictment of the monotony of toil, but the solution is to 
be found, it is being found, in the better fitting of capacity 
to task which universal education makes possible, in the 
improvement of the working environment, and in the op- 
portunity shorter hours afford of utilizing leisure at one's 
will, rather than in the organized dilettanteism, the per- 
petual kindergarten playing at work, the lack of adequate 
training and discipline implied in his phalanx dream. 

Nor is the plan of distribution any more practicable. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 85 

in spite of its dovetailed ingenuity and its frank recogni- 
tion of the services of capital and of expert ability; though 
the proportions to be assigned to labor, to capital, and to 
♦talent are fixed, the decision as to what degree of talent and 
what diligence of labor each has shown is confided to the 
impartial and scientific appraisement of his fellow workers. 
Fourier at least deserves credit for attempting to solve the 
problem of socialist distribution; Owen and the majority 
of the communists simply cut the Gordian knot by assign- 
ing equal shares to all, — meeting the difficulty of distri- 
bution by an expedient which removes all stimulus to 
excellence and renders doubly serious the problem of pro- 
duction. 

The Saint-Simonists and the communists of the Cabet 
type show greater discernment in insisting that the organ- 
ization of industry must be state-wide. That it should be 
state-directed they do not demonstrate so successfully. The 
aim of the former school, to open all careers to talent, to 
prevent any man of promise from being hopelessly handi- 
capped in life's race by the barriers either of economic or 
of political privilege, is eminently sound, an aim which has 
been shared by all liberal schools of thought. Doubt and 
divergence come with the means proposed for attaining 
that end. The Saint-Simonist looks for salvation to an 
inspired bureaucracy gifted with miraculous insight into 
human potentiality and miraculous freedom from graft 
or favoritism. So heavy is the draft which this proposal 
makes on credulity that the Saint-Simonist felt compelled to 
devise a social religion to make the system work, inspiring 
the chiefs of the hierarchy to the height of their great task 
and keeping in submission the lowly rank and file, the re- 
jected who but for the soothing influence of the new relig- 
ion might occasionally be led to question the unerring wis- 
dom and impartiality of their rulers. The recourse to this 
expedient was an unconscious confession that, with men 
and women as they actually are, success could not be ex- 



86 SOCIALISM 

pected. No one who understands the priceless worth of 
freedom will subscribe to the plans of any theorists who 
hastily and in despair of the slow and steady methods of 
practical reform propose to sacrifice liberty to win a ma- 
chine-like efficiency. And if for this reason Saint-Simon- 
ism, with its many redeeming flashes of historic insight 
and high intention, failed to appeal to the world, much 
more deserved and decided has been the rejection of the 
Babeuf or Cabet proposals of a drajb and tyrannous com- 
munism. 

III. THE UTOPIAN TACTICS 

What plan of campaign should the enthusiast adopt who 
believed that the world as it was was hell and the world as 
it might be, heaven? How bridge the gulf? "What is to be 
done when one knows that it would be possible and easy 
for men, if they only listened a moment, to change into cries 
of joy, into songs of love and thanksgiving, the tears and 
groans of the peoples who from pole to pole are bowed be- 
neath the yoke of every misery, distracted by every sufiFer- 
ing? What is to be done?"^ 

It was clear that there were several paths which the so- 
cialist who had made the analysis presented in the preced- 
ing sections would not follow. He would not fold his hands 
in patience, waiting till the forces immanent in the existing 
society should work out his ideal system : the conception of 
development was foreign to him, or presented itself, as to 
Saint-Simon, as dependent on the working-out of a new 
intellectual synthesis, or, as to Fourier, only in the light of 
a discarded alternative, a long and painful course rendered 
unnecessary by the short-cut of his discovery. He would 
not seek his goal by conflict, by setting up class against 
class, for were not all mankind joint, if not equal, sufferers 
from the existing evils, and jointly interested in the estab- 
lishment of the new order? Even those who laid stress on 

* Coiisid6rant, op, dt., ii, p. xxxii. The italics are in the original. 



UTOPIAN SOCL\LISM 87 

the fact of the exploitation of the poor by the rich did not 
think of finding the remedy in combined effort by the ex- 
ploited class to throw off the yoke : the Saint-Simonists who 
saw class conflict everywhere in the past and persisting in 
the present, saw in it only an evil to be removed, not, as 
Marx was later to contend, the instrument of betterment. 
So the Utopian rejected an appeal to arms, because as un- 
necessary as it was inexpedient, with all the best cards in 
the hands of the government, — "the governmental organ- 
ization, the legislative and executive power, the treasury, 
the army, the tribunals, the police with their thousand 
means of dividing and corrupting," ^ — and rejected also 
an appeal to the ballot-box, the arraying of class against 
class on the field of politics. ^ 

There was one course open and one only — peaceful per- 
suasion, untiring effort to carry the new evangel to a wait- 
ing world and induce men by the compelling power of 
truth and reason to accept it. Out of ignorance men had 
gone astray; by enlightenment they would find the path to 
paradise again. " If only men would listen for a moment ! " 
Set the possibilities of the new order before them, point the 
contrast with the impossibilities of the old disorder, and 
justice and self-interest alike would compel all men to 
accept the good tidings. The rich would be as eager as the 

^ Cabet, op. cit., p. 561. 

2 Cf. Owen, New Moral World, iii, 286: "The Socialist relies on reason, 
intelligence, and moral power as the means for the establishment of his 
plans; the Radical looks to the concentration of the physical strength of 
the people as the means of overawing the privileged classes and carrying 
his views. The Socialist would first bestow on all plenty of every requisite 
for the physical wants of man and a rational education, that thence may 
spring harmony of opinion and rational conduct. The Radical would give 
power first, leaving the people to take the chance of a thousand crude and 
discordant nostrums, by which they might be long bewildered and slowly 
benefited. The Socialist projects an edifice complete in all its proportions 
and calculated to satisfy the whole intellectual, moral, and physical facul- 
ties of human nature before beginning to alter ; the Radical would pull 
down, leaving to the direction of chance what may follow next." 



88 SOCIALISM 

poor: "it will be the essence of wisdom in the privileged 
classes to cooperate sincerely and cordially with those who 
desire not to touch one iota of the supposed advantages 
which they now possess; and whose first and last wish is to 
increase the particular happiness of those classes as well 
as the general happiness of society: a very little reflection 
on the part of the privileged will insure this line of con- 
duct." 1 

Rarely has faith found more zealous apostles. Owenite 
and Saint-Simonist, the follower of Fourier and the follower 
of Cabet, vied in the eagerness with which they recruited 
disciples and founded new centres of propaganda, corre- 
sponded, lectured, edited journals, multiplied pamphlets 
and popular expositions. Their chief method of propa- 
ganda, however, was experiment. The readiest way to con- 
vince mankind of the feasibility of the new proposals was 
to put them into execution on a small scale, to set up 
"duodecimo editions of the New Jerusalem," as Marx 
slightingly put it later, and by the radiant success these 
experiments would attain demonstrate the possibilities of 
wider extension. ^ 

Naturally this method found readier favor with those 
whose ideal unit of ultimate organization was the small, 
independent community than with the advocates of state 
control, but even the Saint-Simonists dallied with experi- 
mental workshops where men were to be employed ac- 
cording to their capacity and rewarded according to their 

^ Owen, New View of Society, p. 26. 

* "What do we ask? Do we ask for power, authority, force? . . . No, 
we do not ask that the whole state should be confided to our hands to 
apply our theories to it by act of authority: we ask an experiment in a 
corner of the world, a test of the associative mechanism, carried out on a 
few hundred hectares of land, by a small capital conquered to our convic- 
tions; we do not wish to rule society by compulsion, we wish to enlighten 
it by an experiment, to prove to it by an achievement which would com- 
promise no existing interest that our social organization is capable of satis- 
fying every social interest, every need, and that without imposing any 
yoke of compulsion." — Considerant, op. cit., ii, p. xiii. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 80 

work, and Cabet, after a sensible protest,^ succumbed to 
the prevailing enthusiasm, 

Enthusiasm and apostoHc fervor were, however, ex- 
pended in vain. Propaganda by exhortation scored no per- 
manent success, led to no persistent, organized movement. 
The brilliant band of Saint-Simonists, including many men 
destined afterwards to win fame in the humdrum bourgeois 
society they had attacked, dwindled by one secession after 
another, due to personal or doctrinal disputes, and finally 
broke up in a cloud of disgrace incurred by the vagaries of 
Enfantin's gospel of a female Messiah and the rehabilita- 
tion of the flesh. Fourierism flashed into wide popularity 
after the Saint-Simonist fiasco, and then disintegrated, 
leaving no more substantial result than a stimulus to 
profit-sharing experiments. The hundreds of thousands of 
disciples whom Cabet had one time claimed found other 
channels for their discontent in the revolutionary strug- 
gles of '48 or were disillusioned by the fate of the American 
Icarias. What was soundest in Owenism contributed a 
notable share to the factory legislation, popular education, 
and cooperative movements : Owen himself wandered into 
the wilderness of spiritualism and attacks on marriage 
The sects and the schools vanished; what was left was 
the va,gue popular awakening to the fact that all was not 
well with capitalistic society. 

Propaganda by experiment failed equally disastrously. 
There was no lack of variety; in the half-century from 1820 
to 1870 hundreds of model communities were established, 
chiefly in the United States, the home of freedom and 
cheap land. Owen and Cabet and Considerant themselves 
headed colonies; Fourier was deprived of this opportunity 
through the failure of the millionaire for whom he trustingly 
waited every day from twelve to one for years to present 

^ "No partial experiments in communism! Their success could do 
little good, and their failure, almost inevitable, would always do much 
harm." — Op. dt., p. 564. 



90 SOCIALISM 

himself, but his American disciple, Arthur Brisbane, sowed 
the seed broadcast, sometimes to be astonished at the har- 
vest. The emotional, almost neurotic, idealism character- 
istic of a large section of the American people, which found 
vent at different times in revivalist frenzy, Millerism, anti- 
Masonic crusades, Rochester rappings and spiritualism, 
provided ready audience for the apostles of the phalanx or 
the Owenite community. Into these experimental colonies 
there thronged enthusiasts of all degrees, high-souled and 
high-gifted lovers of their Idnd, transcendentalists of the 
traditional type who "dived into the infinite, soared into 
the illimitable and never paid cash," down to the more 
commonplace cranks whom Horace Greeley characterized 
in the days of his disillusionment from the phalanstery 
craze, as "the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the head- 
strong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, 
the idle and the good-for-nothing generally, who, finding 
themselves utterly out of place and at a discount in the 
world as it is, raslily concluded that they are exactly fitted 
for the world as it ought to be." ^ 

It may be worth while to record some characteristic 
phrases out of the glowing prospectuses of the new societies : 
"the barricades of selfishness and isolation are overthrown" ; 
"to us has been given the very word this people need as 
a guide in its onward destiny"; "we have been shown by 
the Columbus of the new industrial world how to solve the 
problem of the egg"; "destined to bless humanity with 
agesof abundance, harmony, and joy"; "... nurture this 
tree until its redeeming unction shall shed a kindred halo 
through the length and breadth of the land"; "a beautiful 
and romantic domain " ; " Alphadelphia phalanx has been 
formed under the most flattering prospects : a constitution 
has been adopted and signed"; "enclosed within walls 
which beat back the storms of life"; "I expect to see all the 
arts cultivated and every beautiful and grand thing gen- 
^ Cited in Noyes, History of American Socialisms, p. 653. 



UTOPIAN SOCL\LISM 91 

erally appreciated" ; "the beautiful spectacle of prosper- 
ous, harmonic, happy phalanxes dotting the broad prairies 
of the West, spreading over its luxuriant valleys and radi- 
ating light to the whole land that is now in darkness and 
the shadow of death"; "three attorney s-at-law . .'. are 
learning honest and useful trades." ^ 

So much for the dreams. The awakening was rarely long 
delayed. The great majority of the communities dissolved 
in failure in the first or second year of the experiment; 
a few of the Fourierist phalanxes, the Wisconsin, Brook 
Farm, and North American communities, lasted from five 
to twelve years; the Icarian experiment had over half a cen- 
tury of flickering existence, while a handful of religious com- 
munities, including the Shakers, the Amana Society, the 
Rappites, and the Oneida Community, still survive, though 
the latter two have virtually become ordinary joint-stock 
companies. As the sequel to the glorious visions cited in 
the preceding paragraph there might be set down extracts 
from the epitaphs written at the time, chiefly by members 
of the ephemeral communities: "the want of means and 
the want of men" ; "the sole occupation was parade and 
talk"; "self-love was a spirit that could not be exorcised"; 
"hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt"; "Mr. Owen 
was not a teachable man" ; "there were few good men to 
steer things right"; "the soil being covered with snow the 
committee did not see it before purchasing" ; "a motley 
group of ill-assorted materials as inexperienced as it was 
heterogeneous"; "there is no such thing as organization 
or unity without Christ and religion" ; "quarreling about 
what they called religion"; "... did not prevent the 
purchase of hair-dye"; "there was no one to tell them 
what to do and they did not know what to do themselves "; 
"a band of musicians insisted that their brassy harmony 
was as necessary to the common happiness as bread or 
meat and declined to enter the harvest-field or work* 
* Noyes, History qf Afnerican Sooialisrm. 



92 SOCIALISM 

shop" ; "some so contrive the work as not to be distant at 
meal -time " ; "that which produces in the world only 
commonplace jealousies and everyday squabbles is suf- 
ficient to destroy a community"; "every one seemed to be 
setting an example and trying to bring the others to it."^ 
Is the collapse of the Utopian movement to be taken as 
a condemnation of the ideal sought or merely of the tactics 
employed? So far as the advocates of the small independ- 
ent communities were concerned, their tactics were success- 
ful, to the extent that their schemes were given a trial. In 
their case the resjDgnsibility for the failure of the move- 
ment rests clearly on the inherent impracticability of their 
proposals. The disciple of Fourier or Owen who succeeded 
in setting up an experimental community of the same gen- 
eral type as the ultimate organization he proposed, has no 
injustice done him if the failure of his experiment is taken 
as conclusive evidence of the futility of his panacea. Plausi- 
ble reasons have been advanced to the contrary. The com- 
munities, it is urged, were oases in capitalistic deserts; their 
failure could not prove that a group of kindred commun- 
ities would not succeed. The failure, however, was usually 
to be ascribed to internal rather than external trouble; so 
far as the superior attractions of the neighboring compet- 
itive society served to lure away the disillusioned, that is 
hardly source for just complaint. Nor, in view of the stress 
laid in these Utopian schemes on the self-contained charac- 
ter of the communities and the unsatisfactory provisions 
made for the limited intercommunal trade permitted, can 
the environment be said to be a very material factor. 
Again, it is explained that the members of non-religious 
communities were not of the proper stamp : they consisted 
chiefly of a "heterogeneous crowd of idealists of all possible 
vocations, accustomed to a higher standard of life, and as 
a rule devoid of any knowledge of farming." ^ The experi- 

' Noj'es, HiMory of American Soelalisms. 

* Hillquit, History of Socialiam in the United States, p. 139. 



UTOPIAN SOCIALISM 93 

ments were usually undertaken without the means neces- 
sary for their conduct on the scale and under the conditions 
their planners had presupposed: "the experimenters, as a 
rule, had to satisfy themselves with a small parcel of bar- 
ren land in the wilderness, and that heavily mortgaged. 
. . . One or more miserable log huts took the place of 
the gorgeous social 'palace' and the 'attractive industry' 
dwindled down to a pathetic and wearisome struggle of un- 
skilled and awkward hands against the obstinate wiles of a 
sterile and unyielding soil." ^ So far as the shortcomings of 
the community members were due merely to inexperience, 
the defense is a fair and valid one; so far as they were 
rooted in crotchety and impractical temperaments, the 
defense serves to illuminate the causes of the success of so- 
cialist preaching rather than to excuse the failure of social- 
ist practice. And as for the external difficulties faced, the 
scanty capital and the reluctant soil, the plea seems but 
a sorry one when we remember that it was just such dif- 
ficulties as these which the hosts of individualist pioneers 
have faced and conquered, not once nor twice but millions 
of times, in the onward sweep across the American continent, 
patiently and stubbornly subduing the wilderness. The 
burden of the failure cannot be shifted. Whenever the 
stimulus of individual and family interest was withdrawn, 
disaster followed, except in the few cases where religious 
fanaticism and monastic discipline supplied a centripetal 
force in substitute.^ 

For those socialists, on the contrary, whose ideal unit 
was the state, no attempt at a partial and local application 
of their proposals could afford a basis for definite conclu- 

1 Hillquit, History of Socialism in the United States, p. 97. 

* As Hillquit points out (ibid., p. 139), the comparative success of the 
sectarian communities is due in part to the fact that they were "chiefly 
composed of German peasants, men skilled in tillage of the soil, and 
whose wants were more than modest," and in part to their readiness to 
discard communism, which was but a secondary incident in their religious 
experiment. 



94 SOCIALISM 

sions. In the experimental community the task was in 
some respects more difficult, in others simpler than in a 
state-wide attempt; its failure could not conclusively de- 
monstrate the worthlessness, nor its success the worth, of the 
wider plan. It was necessary that the nation should move 
as a whole, and to that end their nation-wide propaganda 
was directed. The propaganda failed; not, the modern 
socialist contends, because the end they proposed was im- 
"practicable, but because of their Utopian trust in the pos- 
sibility of persuading the rich to relinquish their privileges. 
The sweet reasonableness of the Saint-Simonist agita- 
tion provokes the ridicule of the militant, class-conscious 
Marxian. The discussion of the comparative merits of the 
Utopian tactics and of the later methods of revolutionary 
uprisings, political agitation, and syndicalist pressure, must, 
however, be postponed until the doctrines and aims of pre- 
sent-day socialism have been examined. 



CHAPTER V 

THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS: I. THE MATERIALISTIC 
CONCEPTION OF HISTORY 

The chief contribution of Karl Marx to socialist theory 
and practice, we have seen, was to represent socialism as 
no longer an individual fantasy, a sect's Utopia, but as the 
inevitable next step in the development of human society. 
He put socialism in the main current of the world's history. 
He attained a new conception of the forces that have shaped 
society in the past and that will shape it in the future, 
a conception which changed the point of view of the ana- 
lysis of the capitalistic system, conditioned the ideal com- 
monwealth which was to develop out of capitalism, and 
shaped the tactics of the movement. This new doctrine, 
this new attitude to life, is what is known as the Material* 
istic Conception of History. 

V^The Utopian analysis of the existing social order as a 
gigantic error due to the ignorance or knavery of past gen- 
erations, and the consequent Utopian proposals to remake 
the whole social structure on a rational pattern, were 
merely, it has been noted, the exaggerated outcome of the 
absolute and unhistorical character of the thinking of 
the age. Marx was equally the child of his time. He grew 
to intellectual maturity under the influence of a strong reac- 
tion against the eighteenth-century view.j It was begun by 
the attempt of the opponents of the French Revolution — 
notably Burke, De Bonald, De Maistre and De Lamennais 
— to defend the ancient institutions and ancient customs 
which had been condemned at the bar of rationalist in- 
dividualism, to show particularly that political societies 
did not originate in conscious contract, that constitutions 



96 SOCIALISM 

could not be made to order, and that both societies and con- 
stitutions were natural growths out of the character and 
conditions of the people.^ There was no "natural order/' 
to serve as a universal standard. Political systems which 
seemed irrational to the modern radical had their justifica- 
tion in that they reflected the social relations and industrial 
development of their place and timej Gradually the new 
conceptions of the relative justification of past institutions, 
and the necessary connection between the difiFerent expres- 
sions of a people's life came to pervade the thinking of the 
forties and fifties. In history, Guizot pointed out that 
the French Revolution was merely the political reflection 
of the struggle between feudalism and th e bourge oisie; in 
jurisprudence, Savigny demonstrated the relativity of 
legal systems to various stages in the progress of society; in 
economics, Roscher was soon to found the historical school. 
Saint-Simon's fertile pioneer efforts in the same field were 
being systematized and developed by his pupil Comte. For 
the development of Marx and of scientific socialism, how- 
ever, the most important exponents of the new tendency 
were Hegel and the Hegelians of the Left. 

The conception of development, of process, was the key- 
note of Hegel's whole comprehensive system of thought. 
Human history was not an accidental succession of events, 
a "wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence," ^ but, like all 
other reality, the record of the unfolding of the Idea, pro- 
ceeding by its own inner necessity to a self-recognized goal. 
Progress, Hegel maintained, takes place by the method of 
dialectic, through the three phases of thesis, antithesis, and 
/ synthesis. As in logic truth develops from affirmation, im- 
plying by exclusion its negation, to the higher synthesis in 
which the contradiction is solved, only to provide a start- 
ing-point for another dialectic process, so in history, which 
is logic in action, the nations and the world-characters in 

1 Cf . Flint, Philosophy of History, chap. vii. 

^ Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 36. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 97 

which in turn the universal spirit partially finds expression 
— unconsciously controlled to ends not their own by rea- 
son's "cunning" — in turn succumb to the depositaries of 
the conflicting ideas, and become one element in a reconcil- 
ing synthesis. 

Marx, like all young university Germany in the early 
forties, was steeped in the dominant Hegelianism. But 
already in his time the contradiction between the revolu- 
tionary character of the dialectic process and the reaction- 
ary character of the results obtained by it, had split the 
schools into warring wings of Right and Left. By the one 
wing the conservative side of Hegel's two-edged declara- 
tion that "all that is real is reasonable" was emphasized, 
Junkerdom and Lutheran orthodoxy given foundation, and 
the Prussian state regarded as the crowning manifestation 
of the Absolute. By the other, the reality of these institu- 
tions was denied and their speedy passing by dialectic ne- 
cessity foretold. In the stress of controversy with Church 
and State these Hegelians of the Left were driven to the 
French thinkers of the Enlightenment for weapons. Their 
doctrines took on a more and more materialistic tinge till 
finally, in the work of Feuerbach, "the dialectic of the Idea 
became itself merely the conscious reflex of the dialectical 
evolution of the real world, and therefore the dialectic of 
Hegel was turned upside down, or rather it was placed upon 
its feet instead of on its head, where it was standing before." ^ 

It was the Feuerbach version, or perversion, of Hegel- 
ianism which appealed to Marx and Engels. When, there- 
fore, they came to formulate, as every true German must, 
a philosophy of history, while they retained the master's 
belief in the continuity and explicability of histor5% and 
his dialectic process, they sought the motive force, not in 
the Idea but in the material, and especially the economic, 
conditions in which men are placed. 

^ Engels, Feuerbach, The Roots of the Socialist Philosophy, translated 
by Lewis, p. 96. 



98 SOCIALISM 

Their statements of the Materialistic Conception of His- 
tory are unfortunately fragmentary and incidental, and the 
phrasing is far from clear, so that much ambiguity arises 
in the interpretation. In view both of the importance and 
of the ambiguity of the doctrine, it is advisable to quote 
the chief presentations. 

The best-known statement is that of Engels: "The Mani- 
festo being our joint production, I consider myself bound 
to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its 
nucleus belongs to Marx, That proposition is,fthat in 
every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic 
production and exchange, and the social organization neces- 
sarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built 
up, and from which alone can be explained, the political 
and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently 
the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of prim- 
itive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) 
has been a history of class struggles, contests between 
exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that 
the history of these class struggles forms a series of evo- 
lution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached 
where the exploited and oppressed class — the proletariat 
— cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the 
exploiting and ruling class — the bourgeoisie — without, at 
the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society 
at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions 
and class struggles." ^ \ 

More concisely, he^fines it as "that view of the course 
of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great 
moving power of all important historic events in the eco- 
nomic development of society, in the changes in the modes 
of production and exchange, in the consequent division of 
society into classes against one another." ^ 

* Preface to English translation of Communist Manifesto, 1888. 

* Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, translated by Aveling, Introduo 
tioD, p. xiz. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 



(3 



Again: "From this point of view the final causes of all 
social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, 
not in men's brains, not in men's better insight into eter- 
nal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of 
production and exchange. They are to be sought not in 
the philosophy but in the economics of each particular 
epoch." ^ 

Finally, Marx himself: "In the social production which 
men carry on, they enter into definite relations that are 
indispensable and independent of their will; these relations 
of production correspond to a definite stage of develop- 
ment of their material powers of production. The sum total 
of these relations of production constitutes the economic 
structure of society — the real foundation, on which rise 
^JifigaLaad -political superstructures and to which correspond 
definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of pro- 
duction in material life determines the general character of 
the social, political, and spiritual processes in life. It is not 
the consciousness of men that determines their existence, 
but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their 
eonscious i^gg. ) At a certain stage of their development, the 
material forces of production in society come into conflict 
witH the existing relations of production, or — what is but 
a legal expression of the same thing — with the property 
relations within which they had been at work before. 
From forms of development of the forces of production 
these relations turn into their fetters. Then comes the 
period of social revolution. With the change of the eco- 
nomic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more 
or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transform- 
ations the distinction should always be made between the 
material transformation of the economic conditions of pro- 
duction, which can be determined with the precision of 
natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic, 
or philosophic — in short, ideological — forms in which 
* Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 41, 45; italics in original. 



100 SOCLVLISM 

men become conscious of their conjQict and fight it 
out." 1 

On the threshold the question arises whether this materi- 
alistic conception is materialistic in the ontological sense. 
Many categorical statements of Marx lend color to the 
assertion that he was, metaphysically, a materialist. "To 
Hegel," he declared, "the life processes of the human brain, 
i. e., the process of thinking, which under the name of 'the 
Idea' he even transforms into an independent subject, 
is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only 
the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, 
on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material 
world reflected by the human mind, and translated into 
terms of thought." Again he sets in opposition "ich Ma- 
terialist, Hegel Idealist." Yet some of his acutest critics 
deny, and seemingly with reason, that his materialism was 
more than a positivist revolt against metaphysical specu- 
lations of idealists and materialists alike, a resolution to 
confine himself to the interrogation of experience, whether 
or not it were ultimate.^ However this may be, it is certain 
that Marx does not stand for an out-and-out materialist 
explanation of the connection between the material world 
and men's actions, since such an interpretation "could 
scarcely avoid making its putative dialectic struggle a 
mere unconscious and irrelevant confiict of the brute ma- 
terial forces. This would have amounted to an interpreta- 
tion in terms of opaque cause and effect, without recourse 
to the concept of a conscious class struggle."^ His theory, 
then, may hp said to be materialistic chiefly in the sense 
that it contends that the struggle for the material means of 
life conditions the growth of society. 

An examination of this theory, and particularly of the 

^ Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, translated by Stone, 
pp. 11-12. 

^ Cf. Adler, Kausalitdt und Teleologie im Streite um die Wissenschaft; 
Marx-Studien, i, pp. 303, 305. 

' Veblen, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xx, p. 581. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 101 

concrete examples offered in illustration, reveals the fact 
that it is susceptible of two quite distinct interpretations. 
In one interpretation, it is an attempt to show the final 
an^ determining influence of economic conditions, acting 
directly on human hfStory, aiJd particularly on the juristic, 
political, religious, ethical, artistic, and scientific concep- 
tions men frame, an influence exerted through circumscrib- 
ing limitations of vision, through the working of analogy, 
through the ^compulsion of economic desire. From this 
viewpoint it is simply a variation or extension of the i 
Bodin-Montesquieu-Buckle theories of the influence of t 
material environment, laying the stress on economic rather 
than geographic or climatic features. In the other and dis- | 
tinctively Hegelian interpretation, it is mainly a study in 
the dynamics of politics, an attempt to show that "the 
final causes of all social changes and political revolutions" 
are to be sought in the economic conditions, working — 
this is the characteristic point — through class struggles. 
A conclusive illustration of this twofold character is af- 
forded by the fact that the standard English statement of 
the theory, the able presentation by Professor Seligman,^ 
is confined entirely to the first version, making none but 
the most incidental reference to the class-struggle doc- 
trine, and hence arriving at the natural deduction that the 
only connection between socialism and the materialistic 
conception of history is "the accidental fact that the 
originator of both theories happened to be the same man" ^ 
— which, to vary the old saw, is as much as to say that the 
Prince of Denmark happened to be one of the characters in 
"Hamlet." It may be true that the doctrines of Marxian 
socialism are not a logical or necessary deduction from the 
first or even from the second version of this theory; but it 
is equally true that, logically or not, it was this theory 
on which they were in great part based and which has 

^ The Economic Interpretation of History. 
» Ibid., p. 105. 



102 SOCIALISM 

shaped not only the doctrine but the practical activity of 

the latter-day movement. 

It is the first version which is apparent in Marx's inci- 
dental illustration of the influence of economic and material 
conditions on the development of science — the origin of 
astronomy in the necessity of measuring the Nile flow.^ 
It is this version, applied to the explanation of religious 
phenomena, which appears in Marx's declaration that the 
religious world is but the reflex of the real world, and Chris- 
tianity, with its endless worship of abstract man, the fitting 
religion for a society based on the production of commodi- 
ties the value of which is abstractly reduced to the stand- 
ard of homogeneous human labor ;2 or in Engels' attempt 
to deduce Calvinism from the economic conditions of the 
Reformation times,^ or in Kautsky's explanation of the 
otherworldliness of Christianity,^ or in Veblen's theory 
that the conceptions men frame of the deity change with 
the change of economic organization, — Suzerain in feudal 
days, Great Artificer when handicraft dominated,^ and, 
adds Andler, laissez-faire Watchmaker in laissez-faire days.^ 
It is this version, applied to ethics, which leads Kautsky to 

1 Capital, i. Humboldt edition, p. 321. 2 jj^i^^ p 32. 

' "His [Calvin's] predestination doctrine was the religious expression 
of the fact that in the commercial world of competition success or failure 
does not depend upon a man's activity or cleverness but upon circum- 
stances uncontrollable by him. It is not of him that willeth or of him that 
runneth but of the mercy of unknown superior economic powers; and this 
was especially true at a period of economic revolutions when all old com- 
mercial routes and centres were replaced by new ones, when India and 
America were opened to the world, and when even the most sacred eco- 
nomic articles of faith — the value of gold and silver — began to totter 
and break down." — Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. xxi-xxii. 

* " It is in my opinion possible to explain the aversion to earthly things 
and the longing for death of Christianity by the material conditions of the 
time of the Roman Empire. It were, however, preposterous to try to find 
a material interest as the cause of the longing for death." — Neue Zeit, 
XV, p. 215; cited in Boudin, op. cit., p. 260. 

'' American Journal of Sociology, xi, p. 596. 

^ Le Manijeste Communiste, ii. Introduction historique et commeniaire, 
p. 158. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 103 

demonstrate the connection between a limited food-supply 
and the categorical imperative to kill the old and feeble,^ 
or Seligman to point out that the virtue of hospitality is 
far more important in the pastoral stage than in the indus- 
trial,^ or Ghent to remind us that no John Howard appears 
among the Apaches.^ It is this form, again, which throws 
light on the origin of primitive institutions,* as with Mor- 
gan's firfding in the growth of property and the desire 
for its transmission to children the moving power which 
brought in monogamy to insure legitimate heirs,^ or Cu- 
now's economic explanation of the development of the 
matriarchate in the growing importance of women when 
agriculture and domestic industry took the place of hunt- 
ing.^ It is from this standpoint that modern historians 
have rewritten the story of every war from the Pelopon- 
nesian struggle to the Russo-Japanese war, finding each at 
bottom inspired by economic necessity, by the need of out- 
let for the support of growing populations, by the hunger 
for colonies, for trade-routes, and for markets.^ 

* Kautsky quotes from Nansen's Esquimaux Life: "When thisEgede 
had spoken to an Eskimo girl of love of God and our neighbor, she said, 
'I have proved that I love my neighbor because an old woman who was ill 
and could not die begged me that I would take her for a payment to the 
steep cliff, from which those always are thrown who can no more live. But 
because I love my people, I took her there for nothing and threw her down 
from the rocks,'" and comments: "We have seen that the necessity for 
killing old and sick members of society very easily arises with a limited 
food-supply and this kilHag becomes then signalized as a moral act." — 
E)tk{cs and the Materialistic Conception of History, translated by Askew, 
p. 182. 

" The Economic Interpretation of History, p. 129. 

^ Mass and Class, p. 17. 

^ It is significant that after Engels had studied the primitive stages of 
human development somewhat more closely he explicitly excepted them 
from the operation of the class-struggle version of the doctrine. (Preface 
to the Communist Manifesto, 1886.) 

^ Ancient Society, 1st edition, p. 477. 

" Neue Zeit, xvi, pp. 238, 241 ; cited in Seligman, p. 80. 

' Cf. a comprehensive review in Robinson, "War and Economics," 
Political Science Quarterly, xv, p. 581. 



104 SOCIALISM 

With much of Marx's contention, as thus interpreted, 
one must agree. His emphasis on the importance of the 

^ economic factor in history was a natural reaction from that 
unreal closet philosophy which read all life in terms of intel- 
lectual speculation, and judged it beneath the dignity of 
history to take heed of the effect of the ways in which men 

V earned their living. All history is being rewritten under 
the influence of this fertile conception — a conception of 
course not due to Marx alone. But, not content with 
merely stressing this neglected factor, Marx, as is inevitable 
in the proclamation of a revolutionary idea, exaggerated 
the doctrine to an indefensible degree. The best evidence 
of this exaggeration is found in the continual attempts 
made since by the propounders of the doctrine, themselves 
and their most orthodox disciples, to hedge and qualify, and 
to stretch the phrasing to include omitted forces. To the 
"productive forces" to which Marx assigned full primacy, 
Engels early added "the conditions of exchange," a factor 
which in any accurate interpretation of Marx's doctrine 
must be considered secondary.^ Race, again, is elevated by 
Engels to the dignity of a primary force, ^ and an attempt 
made to bring those geographical and climatic influences 
on which Buckle had laid stress within the concept. Still 
more inconsistent is the contention of Kautsky that nat- 
ural science and even mathematics must also be included: 
"the present condition of mathematics constitutes a part 
of the economic conditions of existing society as much as 
the present condition of machine technique or of the world 
of commerce." ^ Engels himself in his last years admitted 
the exaggeration of the earlier statements, and by recog- 
nizing the influence of the ideological forces increased the 
tenability of the theory at the expense of its consistency.* 

^ Cf. Tugan-Baranowsky, Theoretische Grundlagen des Marxismus, p. 11. 

* Documcnte des Socialismits, n,ifi. 74. ' Die Ncue Zeit, xv, 1, p. 234. 

* Cf. letters to Der Socialistische Akademiker, 189.5, cited in Seligman, 
op. cit., p. 62, and Masaryk, Philosophische und sociologische Grundlagen 
des Marxismus, pp. 103-109. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 105 

The attempt at a monistic interpretation of history, the / 
endeavor to find one pass-key which will unlock all the 
secrets of the past, is reluctantly and silently abandoned. 
It is impossible to bring all the wide range of human 
interests and motives under a single rubric. The thirst for 
fame and for power, religious aspiration, racial prejudice, 
sex-attraction, scientific curiosity, the instinct of play, are 
as real and as primary forces as economic environment. It 
is true that since life is a unity and our varied interests are 
not separated in water-tight compartments, each of these 
forces continually reacts on the others. It is possible,'" 
therefore, for a theorist to isolate the instances of the way 
in which one of these factors has colored and conditioned 
the others, and, neglecting entirely the reactions in the con- 
trary direction, to frame a doctrine of the overwhelming 
importance of this or that human interest. Such a method 
can make no claim to scientific finality or completeness ._. 
Instead of interpreting history it cramps and perverts it 
and leads to an utter disregard of historical proportion. One 
must put on the blinders of prepossession to see in the doc- 
trine of predestination merely a reflection of the uncer- 
tainty of commercial success, — an explanation which 
hardly accounts for its taking root in commercially back- 
ward Scotland rather than in commercially developed Ven- 
ice, or makes it clear why the doctrine did not arise in the 
equally uncertain political struggles of renaissance Italy, 
when, as Machiavelli regretfully admitted, "fortune was 
the arbiter of one half of our actions." ^ It is unscientific to 
note how industrial conditions may shape religious devel- 
opment, and to neglect the counter-influence, to overlook, 
for example, the tremendous effect of the religious taboo on 
meat on certain fast-days on the fishing industry, on the 
voyages to the Newfoundland Banks and the consequent 
exploration and development of Northern America; or, tes, 
take a more complex and indirect instance, the effect of the 

* The Prince, chap. 25. 



106 SOCIALISM 

adoption of the Protestant religion on the development of 
industrial institutions. It is unscientific to stress the im- 
portance of the economic factor in the development of the 
family and to overlook the influence of family feeling on 
the industrial organization, exerted, for example, through 
the institution of inheritance and the desire to provide for 
one's children or *' found a family," or to neglect the im- 
portance of the instinct for adornment and sex-impression 
in stimulating and shaping the direction of industry. 

It is illuminating in many instances to disentangle the 
economic interests which have played their important 
shares in the wars of the past, the more so because of the 
undue neglect accorded this source of strife by historians 
engrossed with surface personalities. But it is only to 
darken knowledge to thrust this explanation into the fore- 
ground in every case and even to attribute to it exclusive 
influence, to trace the cause of the Spanish-American war 
to the Cuban sugar situation,^ or, in face of the consensu* 
of opinion among competent recent investigators that the 
British colonial system did not work materially to the de- 
triment of American industrial development,^ to find the 
cause of the American Revolution in the "economic dis- 
content of a sadly exploited people,"^ instead of in the im- 
possibility, in the then conditions of imperial organization, 
of a free people consenting permanently to be ruled even 
for their own industrial good by men no abler than them- 
selves three thousand miles away. In every war, Hunnish 
inroad, Iroquois raid, Mahometan expansion. Christian 
Crusade, Napoleonic struggle, British-Boer or Spanish- 
American conflict, one finds mingled in greatly varying pro- 
portions some or all of such motives as the desire to make 

* Cited in Seligman, oj). cit., p. 86. 

2 Cf. Beer, British Cdlonial Policy, 1756-1765, and Ashley, "The Com- 
mercial Legislation of England and the American Colonies, 1600-1760," 
Quarterly Journal of Economics, xiv, p. 1. 

* Spargo, Socialism, p. 68. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS lOT 

a name for prowess, to "wreak one's ego on the cosmos," 
the thirst for "sport" and excitement, rehgious fanaticism, 
the memory of traditional feuds, dynastic ambition, the 
altruistic desire to help the under dog, racial jealousy fired 
by medicine-man or yellow press, and the economic interest 
of a whole or a dominant section of a people. The historian 
who is seduced by the intoxication of a new idea or the de- 
sire to be up to date into finding none but the latter factor 
at work has no more read history than the " realist " novelist 
who finds only the ugly and the sordid real has read life .^ _ 
It is, however, the second version of the theory which is | 
most distinctively Marxian. The materialistic conception J 
of history is an interpretation of the past and the present 
as a continuous dialectical process, a development by in- 
cessant struggle of opposing forces. The forces engaged, 
however, are not, as with Hegel, successive manifestations 
of the Idea, but class groups produced by economic con- 
ditions. As in the first version, the economic conditions of 
a period are regarded as all-important, but attention is con- 
centrated on one means by which their influence is exerted 
— the formation of warring classes of exploiting and ex-,^ 
ploited. Changes in the methods of production and ex- 
change result in developing new classes which war with the 
dominant order, subdue it, and are in turn brought into 
conflict with their victorious successor. In the present 
epoch the struggle lies between the bourgeoisie, the exploit- 
ing class, and the proletariat, the exploited: the antagon- 
ism between them corresponds to the antagonisms which 
exist in the relations of production to-day, between the 
social character of production and the individual character 
of appropriation of the product, as well as between the 
coordination and harmony which exist in the individual 
factory and the anarchy which marks production as a 
whole. This conflict will prove the last; the victory of the 

^ Cf. for an extended discussion of the doctrine, Tugan-Baranowsky, 
Thcoretische Grundlayen des Marxismus, pp. 1-129. 



108 SOCIALISM 

proletariat will mean the end both of the class interest and 

of the class struggle. Exploitation and class struggle — 

these are the keynotes of the doctrine. 

^C At the outset the same criticism must be made on this 

I as on the first version : neither in the past nor in the present 

* can the life of man be reduced entirely to economic terms. 

Marx is simply arraying in somewhat different costume that 

hobgoblin of the classical economist myth-makers, the 

economic man, and projecting his shadow not only over 

the individuahst era of modem capitalism but over all pre- 

t ceding history. It is sometimes contended, it is true, that 
Marx does not imply that men are invariably actuated by 
motives of personal economic interest. This is quite correct, 
if it is meant that the motive which immediately actuates 
the individual is not necessarily a consciously recognized 
material one.^ Yet it is of the essence of Marx's position 
that the material interest of the individual or class should 
be considered as the reality in the background, however 
it may be obscured by "ideological ve ils.*' if The point may 
be illustrated by the contrast between the position of Marx 
himself and of one of his otherwise most orthodox disciples, 
the American Marxist, Louis Boudin. In a controversy 

^ " The will is determined by passion or reflection, but the levers which 
passion or reflection immediately apply are of very different kinds. Some- 
times it may be external circumstances, sometimes ideal motives, zeal for 
honor, enthusiasm for truth and justice, personal hate. . . . But the 
question arises: What driving force stands in turn behind these motives 
of action; what are the historical causes which transform themselves into 
motives of action in the brains of the agents? " — Engels, Feuerhach, pp. 
105-106. 

" In the domain of historico-social determinism, the linking of causes to 
effects, of conditions to the thing conditioned, of antecedents to conse- 
quents, is never evident at first sight in the subjective determinism of 
individual psychology. . . . We begin with the motives religious, polit- 
ical, esthetic, passionate, etc., but must subsequently discover the causes 
of these motives in the material conditions underlying them. . . . Some 
ideological envelope which prevented any sight of the real causes." — La- 
briola. Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History, translated by 
Kerr, pp. 110, 105. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 109 

with a brother socialist who maintained that the material- 
istic conception of history was incompatible with individ- 
ual idealism, Boudin offers the illustration of tens of thou- 
sands of Russians and Japanese sacrificing their lives on the 
altar of patriotism, for an ideal which was, in the case of the 
poorer classes, a reflection not of their own material inter- 
ests but of the interests of a ruling class. ^ Here the individ- 
ual is actuated by an ideal which blinds him to his own ma- 
terial interest. Contrast with this any of the concrete stud- 
ies in which Marx applied his doctrine, for example, his 
analysis of the rise of the Empire of Napoleon the Little. 
Throughout, all the participants in the game, bourgeois 
great and small, landed aristocrat, peasant, proletarian, 
are assumed to be acting in furtherance of their material 
interest. Discussing the struggle between Legitimists and 
Orleanists, Marx points out that "what kept these two fac- 
tions apart was no so-called set of principles, it was their 
material conditions of life — two different sorts of pro- 
perty; it was . . . the old rivalry between capital and 
landed property." He goes on to make clear in what lim- 
ited sense he admits the influence of ideal motives: "That 
simultaneously old recollections; personal animosities, 
fears, and hopes; prejudices and illusions; sympathies and 
antipathies; convictions, faith, and principles bound these 
factions to one House or the other, who denies it? Upon 
the several forpis of property, upon the social conditions of 
existence^ a wliole superstruct ure is reared of various and 
peculiarly shaped feelings, illusions, habits of thought, and 
conceptions of life. The whole class produces and shapes 
these out of its material foundation and out of the corre- 
sponding social conditions^ The individual unit to whom 
they flow through tradition and education, may fancy that 

* Theoretical System of Karl Marx, p. 37. The distinction which Boudin, 
following Kautsky, makes on the same page, between "material condi- 
tions" and "material interests" is a not quite conscious recognition of the 
distinction maintained above between the two versions of the theory. 



110 SOCIALISM 

they constitute the true reasons for and premises of his con- 
duct." ^ Clearly IMarx recognizes the existence of ideal or 
rather ideological motives, but recognizes them only as the 
yr\ intermediate outcome of material class interest and as 
/ \ invariably impelling the actor in the direction which that 
I material interest determines. 
r^^3o far as economic conditions have shaped history — 
' and their importance is undeniable — it is impossible to 
^/^ show that that influence has been exerted only through the 
medium of class struggle.. Marx's emphasis on the class 
struggle, hailed by his followers as the most important con- 
tribution to social theory made by scientific socialism, was 
in reality not a scientific deduction from facts but a survival 
of a priori metaphysics. His mind was so obsessed by He- 
gelian convictions of the dialectic character of mankind's 
development that he tried to fit the facts to the formula, 
and consequently for him class struggle monopolized the 
whole economic stage. Just as the economic field is not as 
wide as human life, so within this field class struggle is not 
the sole form in which the influence of economic conditions 
is exerted. The illustrations cited in connection with the 

L first version of the doctrine are sufficient evidence. What 
Bas class struggle to do with Engels' interpretation of Cal- 
vinism, or Kautsky's explanation of the tendencies of early 
Christianity, or Seligman's comment on the connection 
/of pastoral life and the virtue of hospitality? Economic 
forces do not work on men solely as units of classes but on 
men as members of the whole social group, as members of a 
pastoral tribe or of a highly organized community. In great 
part men share in common the influences of their economic 
environment. It is only within a limited portion of the 
economic field, where interests conflict, that the economic 
factor can be said to spell divergence of class interest. 
Within this limited sphere, again, it is by no means in- 

* The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, translated by De Leon, 
p. 24. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 111 

evitable that divergence of class interest will entail class 
struggle. Here Marx is influenced by the very theory of 
the determining part played by the intellect in men's af- 
fairs against which he is contending. He assumes that 
because the material interests of a class would lead them, 
if they were rationally to follow their interest, to struggle 
against another class, that outcome will inevitably resu lt. J 
A conclusion more in harmony with the realities of group 
psychology is that contained in Professor Veblen's com- 
ment on the Marxian position: "Under the Darwinian 
norm it must be held that men's reasoning is largely con- 
trolled by other than logical or intellectual forces; that the 
conclusion reached by public or class opinion is as much, or 
more, a matter of sentiment than of logical inference; and 
that the sentiment which animates men, singly or collect- 
ively, is as much, or more, an outcome of habit or native 
propensity than of calculated material interest. There is, for 
instance, no warrant in the Darwinian scheme of things for 
asserting a 'priori that the class interest of the working 
class will bring them to take a stand against the propertied 
class." ^ For proof, listen to any socialist denunciation of 
the folly of the American workingman in casting a vote 
for the "Republican or big-business" candidate, or for the 
"Democratic or little-business" candidate, or witness how 
the majority of British workingmen threw up their caps for 
the war against the Boers and the majority of American 
workingmen sympathized with Philippine expansion in 
spite of the fact that imperialism has time and again meant 
a halt in social reform and certainly has brought little com- 
pensating gain to the mafficking workingman. Equally 
with jingoism, professional baseball or football, betting, 
vaudeville, or murder trials may absorb the interest and 
energy that in the socialist scheme of things are p re- 
destined for the Revolution. The Marxian socialist will telT] 
you that the trouble with these unenlightened specimens 
1 Quarterly Journal of Economics, xxi, p. 308. 



112 SOCIALISM 

of the proletariat is that they are not yet "class conscious." 
The point is that there is no conclusive evidence that they 
\ are ever going to become class conscious.^ 

Yet when all qualifications are made, class struggles for 
economic advantage are a grim reality. Only a blind opti- 
mism can deny the reality of divergence of economic inter- 
est and the reality of the conflict which sometimes results. 
Only a blind prejudice, however, can lead to the further 
sweeping generalization that to-day only two classes hold 
the field, bourgeoisie and proletariat, and that in their ir- 
reconcilable conflict lie the motor forces of future develop- 
ment. ^ Men's economic interests are rarely single; in the 
complexity of modern industrial society their relations are 
not confined to a single other group ; they cannot be classi- 
fied solely from one viewpoint. The strata are many, the 
cross-sections innumerable. Geographical division, occupa- 
tional interest, color and racial differences cut athwart the 
[symmetrical lines of the class-struggle theorist. Not merely 
do the interests of workmen and employer diverge, so far 

1 Kautsky, angered at the failure of the English working classes to play 
the revolutionary part cast for them by Marx, bursts out: "Their highest 
ideal consists in aping their masters and in maintaining their hypocritical 
respectability, their admiration for wealth, however it may be obtained, 
and their spiritless manner of killing their leisure time. The emancipation 
of their class appears to them as a foolish dream. Consequently it is foot- 
ball, boxing, horse-racing, and opportunities for gambling which move 
them the deepest and to which their entire leisure time, their individual 
powers, and their material means are devoted." — The Social Revolution, 
pp. 101-102. 

2 "Certainly the two great classes correspond to the Hegelian negation 
of negation, but this negation of negation does not correspond to reality." 
— Masaryk, op. cit, p. 172. 

Marx recognized the existence of more than two classes in contempo- 
rary society; no fewer than five are enumerated in the Eighteenth Brumaire 
(peasants, petty bourgeoisie, landed aristocracy, capitalist bourgeoisie, 
and proletariat) and eight in Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ger- 
many. Yet these are only minor and temporary divisions: "Society as a 
whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two 
great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat." — 
Communist Manifesto, p. 13. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 113 

as the sharing of the product goes, but the German agrarian 
struggles against the manufacturer, the small shopkeeper 
against the great department store, the independent manu- 
facturer against the trust, the white bricklayer or fireman 
against the negro, the American trade unionist against the 
immigrant, carpenters' against woodworkers' union in 
jurisdictional disputes. Employers and employed unite in "^ 
a closed shop, closed-masters' agreement to prey on the con- 
suming public; trade unions back trusts' demands for more 
room at the tariff trough. The joint-stock company opens] 
all fields to investment by all classes; the workingman be- 
comes his own landlord: economic categories less and less 
coincide with definite and unchanging bodies of individu-J 
als. And still the socialist mumbles his sacred formula of 
bourgeois and proletarian, proletarian and bourgeois. 

One ray of light pierces the gloom of the class-struggle 
doctrine. The present conflict is to be the last; the victori- 
ous proletariat will have no inferior to oppress, and will 
usher in a classless commonwealth, where the wicked wdll 
cease from troubling and the fighters be at rest. This es- 
chatological side of the Marxian theory is, in all probability, 
not so much a theological echo as yet another illustration 
of Hegelian influence, the final cessation of class struggle 
being a deduction from the Hegelian postulate of the final 
reconcilement of the dialectic conflict in the attainment of 
an absolute synthesis. Only the teleological optimism of the 
Hegelian formula can explain Marx's assumption that 
the clash of classes would lead, not to chaos and relapse to 
lower levels, as has happened before in the world's history, 
but to the triumph of the oppressed and living happy ever 
after in a classless Eden. It is, further, a curious attitude 
to be taken by a theorist w^ho has found in class struggle the 
source of all progress in the past. If the prophet speaks 
truly, we are heading for a stereotyped state. Harmony 
plus stagnation is hardly an ideal which will win wide favor. 
Upheld by the party of revolution it is the height of paradox. 



114 SOCIALISM 

To sum up this criticism: economic factors are not the 
sole or ultimate forces in human progress; where economic 
forces are operative, they do not necessarily imply a con- 
flict of interest; where a conflict of interest does exist, it 
does not follow that men will inevitably be guided by their 
interest; so far as conflict of interest does determine action, 
it is a conflict not solely between the interests of two clear- 
cut and irreconcilably opposed classes, but between count- 
less Protean groups, with the lines of division in one rela- 
tion cutting athwart the lines of another, and making the 
opponents of yesterday the allies of to-day; so far, finally, 
as class struggle is held to be a condition of progress, it can 
cease only at peril of stagnation. The materialistic concep- 
tion of history is based, not on an objective cause-and- 
effect study of actual industrial development, but on a phil- 
osopher's formula. The rooting of progress in class strug- 
gle, the expectation of the ultimate synthesis in the class- 
less collectivist commonwealth, the failure to offer any 
adequate explanation of the causes of those changes in the 
economic foundations of society which result in changes in 
the superstructure, all reveal the preconception that social 
? development is to proceed by immanent necessity on the 
i lines of Hegelian dialectic. Since Darwin's day we have 
attained an entirely different conception of development, 
and the Marxian theory of progress is left without a c^dibb 
intellectual basis. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS: II. VALUE AND SURPLUS VALUB 

Having discovered in the materialistic conception of his- 
tory a key to all human achievement, Marx proceeds to use 
it to unlock the secrets of the present epoch, to disclose the 
essential nature and trend of capitalistic production. To- 
day the class struggle takes the form of contest between 
bourgeoisie and proletariat, exploiter and exploited. Marx 's 
first problem, therefore, is to explain the mechanism of pre- 
sent-day exploitation. His explanation takes the form of 
the theory of surplus value, ^ which, again, rests on a theory 
of value. Since the distinctive feature of capitalism is the 
making of commodities for sale in the market, an analysis 
of its working should begin with a theory of market price. 
"In the bourgeois society the commodity form of the pro- 
duct of labor — or the value form of the commodity — is 
the economic cell-form." ^ With the study of the cell all 
scientific investigation of the body politic must begin. 

The theory of value which Marx presents is a variation 
of the famihar labor-value doctrine. The view that labor 
is the source of value, rising naturally in an age when 
handicraft predominated, was given wavering but author- 
itative support by Adam Smith, a^d adopted, with, how- 
ever, essential modification, in the classic treatise of Ricardo, 
The supposed logical deductions fronrthe theory were soon 
drawn by socialist writers in many quarters; Bray and 

* " These two great discoveries, the materialistic conception of history 
and the revelation of the secret of capitalistic production, we owe to Marx. 
With these discoveries Socialism became a science." — Engels, Socialism, 
Utopian and Scientific, p. 44. • 

' Capital, i, p. z. 



116 SOCIALISM 

Thompson and Hodgskin in England, Proudhon and, to 
some extent, Sismondi in France, and Rodbertus in Ger- 
many dotted what they thought were Ricardo's i's and 
crossed what they thought were Ricardo's fs by concluding 
that if " labor " were the sole source of value, the " laborer " 
was entitled to the full produce of his labor, and the cap- 
italist secured a share only by robbery.^ The theory was 
obviously adapted to anti-capitalist criticism, and Marx 
adopted it accordingly, in an amended version, with that 
characteristic uncritical acceptance of fundamentals which 
contrasts so strangely with his hypercritical subtlety on 
minor details. 

Marx begins his demonstration by declaring that the 
fact that commodities are exchanged evidences an equival- 
ence of a third "something" possessed in common. This 
common quahty cannot be a use-value, since exchange is 
an act characterized by a total abstraction from use- value; 
one use- value is just as good as another. There is only one 
common property left, that of being products of labor. The 
magnitude of value contained in a commodity is measured 
by the quantity of abstract human labor embodied, and 
this quantity again is measured by the duration of the 
effort. Having stated this broad proposition, Marx imme- 
diately begins a series of important qualifications. In the 
first place, the labor which forms the substance of value is 
not the actual effort put forth by any specific individual, 
but a homogeneous funded quantity, socially necessary 

* No careful student of Ricardo could hold him guilty of the crude the- 
ory, so frequently fathered upon him and gaining respectability from the 
parentage, that labor is the sole source of value. "When Ricardo speaks 
of labor as regulating value in the long run by means of competition, 
Imodern socialistic schools] interpret him as attributing to labor the power 
of creating value. When he speaks of labor vinth a capital, including under 
it the exertion of capital, they speak of labor with a small initial, meaning 
plain toil, often plain manual toil." (Gonner's Ricardo, Introductory 
Essay, p. Iviii.) Cf. the illuminating chapter on Ricardo in Davenport's 
Value and Distribrdion, for an exposition of the merely regulative and pro- 
portioning function assigned labor in his theory. 



THE MARXL\N ANALYSIS . 117 

labor, the labor required under normal conditions of skill, 
intensity, and up-to-date appliances. The unit in this 
homogeneous fund is a quantum of unskilled labor, simple 
average labor, the labor-power which, on the average, 
apart from any special development, exists in the organism 
of every ordinary individual. Skilled labor counts only as 
multiplied simple labor, the proportion being fixed "by a 
social process that goes on behind the backs of the pro- 
ducers." ^ 

Next Marx brings in by a side door the factor of utility 
previously disregarded. "Nothing can have value," he 
declares, "without being an object of utility. If the thing 
is useless, so is the labor contained in it: the labor does not 
count as labor, and therefore creates no value." ^ This 
qualification is amplified later. "Suppose," the argument 
runs, "that every piece of linen in the market contains no 
more labor-time than is socially necessary. In spite of this, 
all those pieces, taken as a whole, may have had superflu- 
ous labor-time spent upon them. If the market cannot 
stomach the whole quantity at the normal price of two 
shillings a yard, this proves that too great a portion of the 
total labor of the community has been expended in the 
form of weaving. All the linen in the market counts but 
as one article of commerce, of which each piece is only 
an aliquot part. And as a matter of fact, the value also 
of each single yard is but the materialized form of the 
same definite and socially fixed quantity of homogeneous 
human labor." ^ 

Such in broad outline is Marx's labor theory of value, as 
developed in the opening chapters of the first volume of 
" Capital." Marx begins his search for the common quality 
which is the cause of values by carefully putting into the 
sieve, as Bohm-Bawerk expresses it in his classic analysis, 
only "those exchangeable things which contain the pro- 
perty which he desires finally to sift out as a common fac- 

1 Ca-pUal, i, pp. 2-7. ^ /ji^., p. 5. J ibid., p. 50. 



118 SOCIALISM 

tor. ... He acts as one who, urgently desiring to bring a 
white ball out of the urn, takes care to secure this result by 
putting in white balls only." * That is, he limits his inquiry 
to the value of "commodities," and adopts, without ex- 
plicit warning, a definition of commodities which includes 
only products of labor, and excludes "virgin soil, natural 
meadows, etc."^ Having thus made sure that the embodi- 
ment of labor will be one property common to all goods, 
Marx proceeds to prove that it is the property sought by the 
method of exclusion, examining and finding wanting all 
other common properties — a dangerous method of proof 
depending for its validity on the assurance that every pos- 
sible common quality has been passed in review. Only one 
other common quality is, as a matter of fact, considered — 
the possession of use-value, and this, as noted above, is 
rejected on the ground that one use- value is as good as an- 
other. Here Marx assumes that because in exchange it is 
immaterial what species of use-value a good possesses, it is -^ 
therefore legitimate to discard use- value altogether as not 
being the common quality sought, confusing the abstrac- 
tion from the specific form of use-value with an abstraction 
from use- value in general. 

To meet the obvious objection to a labor-value theory 
that goods embodying very different amoimts of labor sell 
at the same price, Marx has recourse to his favorite expedi- 
ent of averaging, normalizing, so as to blot out all these 
individual variations.^ The "total labor power of society" 
is conceived of as a fimd of homogeneous units. The dura- 
tion of the exertion required to produce a given commodity 
by one of these homogeneous units is considered to be the 
socially necessary labor-time. Marx's interpretation of the 
" normal conditions " which determine what time is socially 

* Karl Marx and the Close of his System, p. 134. 

' Capital, i, p. 5. 

» " Marx eliminates by processes of averaging precisely those variations 
which form the subject of investigation. The reasoning thus turns in a 
circle." — Pareto, Les Systemes Socialistes, ii, p. 364. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 119 

necessary is characteristically wavering: it is almost as dif- 
ficult to determine what he understands by "normal" as 
what Marshall means by "representative." It might be con- 
tended that normal or socially necessary means average;, 
and there is authority in Marx for this statement: "No 
more time than is needed on an average, no more than is 
socially necessary." ^ It might be contended that it means 
minimum, that the product of the obsolete machine or 
the antiquated process is not to be counted in the total 
averaged, and for this version there is also authority in 
Marx : " It is important to insist upon this point, that what 
determines value is . . . the minimum time in which it is 
susceptible of being produced." ^ It might be contended 
that socially necessary means maximum, and for this ver- 
sion there is also authority in Marx: the price of agricul- 
tural produce, which is specifically included in the section 
under discussion in the commodities obeying this law, is 
stated later to be regulated by the worst soils.' 

The importance of the factor of utility in determining 
value is admitted only grudgingly and imperfectly. Grudg- 
ingly, for while it is granted that labor directed to the pro- 
duction of a useless article will not create value, the at- 
tempt is made to maintain a formal consistency with the 
doctrine of the sole eflScacy of labor in determining value, 
by asserting that labor is not labor except when applied to 
making a useful object, in the quantity required by society. 
This is as though one should assert that the air is the sole 
factor in the growth of a tree, and afterwards hedge by ex- 
plaining that air is not air unless certain conditions of soil 
and sunshine be present. Instead of stretching the term 
"labor" to include conceptions altogether foreign to it, 
bringing in the factor of utility merely as a qualifying force 

* Capital, i, p. 4. 

2 Poverty of Philosophy, translated by Quelch, p. 39; and cf. the ex- 
ample immediately following the previous quotation. 

* Capital, iii, chap. 39. 



/ 



120 SOCIALISM 

in establishing the presence of labor, the franker course 
would have been to recognize the independent action of this 
indispensable factor. The danger involved in Marx's 
course is that after the term labor has been thus tortuously 
qualified and interpreted to give it plausibility, it will be 
applied in its naive, unqualified sense. In this subordina- 
tion of utility, this attempt to discover value in producers' 
efltort, to the virtual exclusion of consumers' estimate, 
Marx is at one with the English classical school, even going 
beyond them in his assumption of men as economic auto- 
matons, and his disregard of that psychological analysis 
which has been so fruitfully developed by later American 
and Austrian economists. The recognition of the import- 
ance of the factor of utility, further, is imperfect, for the 
assertion is made that things which do not owe their util- 
ity to labor have no value: "such are air, virgin soil, 
natural meadows," ^ and the influence of utility in deter- 
mining the proportion between skilled and unskilled labor 
is not explicitly recognized. Skilled labor counts as so many 
units of unskilled labor, the exact proportion being fixed by 
"a social process that goes on behind the backs of the pro- 
ducers." That is, the problem is to determine how the re- 
lations are established which result in value, and the naive 
answer is made that they are established by market valua- 
tion. ^ It is obvious that the proportion cannot be fixed 

' Capital, i, p. 5. In this contention, Marx agrees with Rodbertus. 
Later he attributes to them a price, equivalent to the capitaHzation of the 
landlord's share of surplus value: however, "even in a communistic econ- 
omy, where no exchange existed, value would necessarily be attributed to 
such useful things, because the degree of human well-being attainable is 
dependent on the disposition of every part of those goods." (Komorzyn- 
ski, "Dor dritte Band von Carl Marx, ' Das Capital,' " in Zeitschrift fur 
Volksmissenschaft, Socialpolitik, und Verwaltung, vi, p. 258.) 

^ An American orthodox Marxist defends this position by making the 
difference between different kinds of labor explicitly only a quantitative 
one: "A skilled laborer produces in a given space of time more than the 
unskilled one. The value of a commodity being equal to the labor which 
it would cost to produce it, the value of the commodity will, in accordance 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 121 

without a knowledge of the relative utility of the products 
of the respective workers. -««;, 

It is not necessary to pursue further a detailed examina- I 
tion of Marx's contentions in these introductory chapters 1 
of "Capital." The attempt to derive value entirely from 
cost, with only an indirect and limited recognition of util- 
ity, is as futile as the reverse endeavor in many current ver- 
sions of the marginal utility doctrine. Throughout, Marx 
looks on value as a quality that can be carried forward in 
production and conferred on the product. Neither labor 
nor capital, nor both in conjunction, can do more than pro- 
duce commodities, give new forms and combinations to the 
material with which they deal. Whether these commod- 
ities will have value when produced depends in determin- 
ing degree on the relation they bear to the needs and de-\ 
sires of prospective purchasers. "Value grows," declares 
Bohm-Bawerk in a notable passage, "not out of the past 
of goods but out of their future. . . . Value cannot be 
forged like a hammer, nor woven like a sheet. . . . What 
production can do is never anything more than to create 
goods, in the hope that, according to the anticipated rela- 
tions of demand and supply, they will obtain value." ';^,.^ 
Much less is it possible to attribute to labor alone among t 
factors of production sole value-creating efficacy — the 
fallacy on which, as will be seen presently, the doctrine of 
surplus value is based. 

The theory that labor is the source of value finds few 
defendants to-day. In the face of the overwhelming criti- 

with the laws of value already explained by us, be the amount of ordinary 
average labor necessary for its reproduction. For it is by this labor that 
society will have to reproduce it, the amount of skilled labor being by 
its very terms limited." — Boudin, Theoretical Systcmof Karl Marx, p. 116. 

That is, it will take perhaps as many as half a dozen hodmen to repro- 
duce Michael Angelo's David, or, to take a perhaps fairer example, half 
a dozen roustabouts to do the work of a skilled jeweler. There are surely 
qualitative as well as quantitative differences. 

1 Bohm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, translated by Smart, pp. 13-1-135. 



122 SOCIALISM 

cism which has been directed against it, even good Marx- 
ists are being forced to abandon it or to explain it away. It 
is not an explanation of the facts of the existing industrial 
system, Engels declares, but holds good as an analysis 
of value in the more primitive industrial organization of 
the pre-capitalist era,i — a contention which is consistent 
neither with the degree of competition that then existed, 
leading to the same equalizing of profit which bedevils the 
theory in the present epoch, ^ nor with the feudal and gild 
restrictions which equally prevented the exchange of goods 
in accordance with the labor-time expended,^ and which 
fails to account for the stress laid on the theory in a work 
avowedly devoted to the study of the capitalist era. A 
later disciple avers it will prove true in the socialist system 
of the future. "So long as capitalist production lasts, the 
law of value cannot express itself normally, . . . only 
under a socialist system of production can the Marxian 
theory of value be consistently applied and used as a regu- 
lator of collective production." * Sombart comes to the res- 
cue, after an admission that if Marx's theory is an attempt 
to explain the actual facts of market value it utterly fails 
in its purpose, by suggesting that the theory is merely a 
Kantian "regulative principle." Sombart finds "refuge for 
this harried value concept" neither in Engels' fifteenth 
century nor in Unterraann's twenty -fifth, but in a still less 
substantial field — "the thought of the theoretical econo- 
mist." "In fact, if one must have an epigrammatic charac- 
terization of Marx's value concept, it is this — value is to 
him not a fact of experience but a fact of thought. . . . 
The concept of value is an instrument of thought, which 
we utilize to make intelligible the phenomena of economic 

1 Engels, Die Neue Zeit, 1895, Erganzung und Nachtrag zum dritten 
Buck den "Kapifal"; cf. Marx, Capital, iii, pp. 207-08. i 

^ Komorzynski, /. c, p. 285. * 

' Cf. Bernstein, Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus, translated by Hkrvey, 
as Evolutionary Socialism, p. 30. 

* Untermann, Marxian Economics, p. 226. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 123 

activity; it is a fact of logic." ^ Or, finally, there is the sour- 
grapes verdict that it does not matter where, if anywhere, 
the theory can be substantiated; Kautsky declares that 
"in reality the Marxian theory of value has nothing to do 
with socialism. . , . The doctrine of value is not the 
foundation of socialism, but the foundation of the existing 
capitalist economy," ^ a verdict which curiously disregards 
the fact that it is of the essence of Marx's doctrine to reveal 
socialism as developing out of the existing capitalist order 
by the operation of the forces whose working within its 
bounds he has analyzed.' 

Underlying most of these attempts to account for the 
failure of the labor theory to explain the actual facts of ex- 
change relations is the contention that it is not designed to 
explain them. This general position may be best set forth 
in the exposition of Professor Veblen. Marx's critics, mis- 
led by their own shallowness or by "a possibly intentional 
oracular obscurity on the part of Marx," err, he declares, 
in identifying value with exchange value, and in showing 
"that the theory of value does not square with the run of 
the facts of price under the existing system of distribu- 
tion, piously hoping thereby to have refuted the Marxian 
doctrine, whereas of course they have for the most part 
not touched it." Marx's theory, Veblen continues, does not 
rest on the playful mystification in the opening chapters 
which purports to be a proof; it is siraplj^ a deduction from 
his Hegelian postulates. In that system the only substan- 
tial reality is the unfolding life of the spirit, a reality which, 
in the neo-Hegelian variant, is translated into terms of the 
"unfolding (material) life of man in society." This life pro- 
cess is the final standard in which relations between goods 

' Archiv fiir soziale Gesetzgebung und Staiistik, vii, p. 574. 

2 Neue Zeit, iii, p. 282. 

' Very appropriately Croce quotes from Heine: "WTien Hegel lay on 
his death-bed he declared, 'Only one has understood me.' But immedi- 
ately after he added irritably, ' And he did not understand me either.' '* 
— Materialisme Uistorique et Sconomie Marxiste, p. 221. 



124 SOCIALISM 

must be expressed : " goods are equivalent to one another 
in the proportion in which they partake of this substantial 
equality." Because of the unequal adjustments of the pre- 
sent distributive system, exchange value does not by any 
means coincide with real value; in fact, "Marx's severest 
stricture on the iniquities of the capitalist system is that 
contained by implication in his development of the man- 
ner in which the actual exchange value of goods system- 
atically diverges from their real (labor-cost) value." ^ 

There is no doubt that even in the iSrst volume of " Capi- 
tal" Marx implies in several brief passages a distinction 
between value and price. ^ There is also no doubt that the 
tenor of the greater i5lirt of the volume is in the contrary 
direction. The assumption of their identity, which has been 
made in the foregoing discussion, is the view which suggests 
itself in almost every paragraph where value is discussed, 
and is the view which prevailed among both the advocates 
and the critics of Marxism till the publication of the third 
volume. It is difficult to read any other meaning into such 
declarations as that exchange value is merely a "definite 
and social manner of expressing the amount of labor be- 
stowed upon an object," or that price is "merely the money 
name of the quantity of social value in his commodity," or 
into a score of similar passages. Nor can Professor Veblen's 
assumption be made to square with the qualifications 
which Marx makes in taking heed of the demand side of 
the market; a value fixed by the unfolding life of the spirit 

^ Quarterly Journal of Economics, xx, pp. 585-587. 

^ Cf. "The possibility, therefore, of quantitative incongruity between 
price and magnitude of value, or the deviation of the former from the 
latter, is inherent in the price form itself." 

"It is true, commodities may be sold at prices deviating from their val- 
ues; but these deviations are to be considered as infractions of the laws of 
the exchange of commodities, which in its normal state is an exchange 
of equivalents, consequently no method of increasing value." 

" We have in fact assumed that prices equal values. We shall, however, 
see in Book iii that even in the case of average prices the assumption can- 
not be made in this very simple manner." — /. c, pp. 46, 84, 120, n. 



THE MARXL\N ANALYSIS 125 

would be subject to no abatement by reason of mere fluc- 
tuations in consumers' tastes or inventors' achievements; 
it would be an indefeasible and abiding reality, beyond the 
influence of time or tide. Does the yard of hand- woven linen 
any less express the weaver's life process because Watt 
invents a steam engine or Cartwright a power-loom? 
Does the skilled laborer possess more units of this sub- 
stantial reality than the unskilled? 

Nor does the undoubted fact that in some passages Marx 
indicates that value is not exchange value settle the point. 
For if Marx does not consistently maintain their identity, 
he explicitly maintains their long-term proportionality. " If 
prices actually differ from values," he declares, "we must, 
first of all, reduce the former to the latter — in other 
words, treat the difference as accidental in order that the 
phenomena may be observed in their purity. . . . We 
know, moreover, that their reduction is no mere scientific 
process. The continual oscillations in prices, their rising 
and falling, compensate each other, and reduce themselves 
to an average price, which is their hidden regulator. It 
forms the guiding star of the merchant or the manufac- 
turer in every undertaking that requires time. He knows 
that, when a long period of time is taken, commodities are 
sold neither over nor under but at their average price. If, 
therefore, he thought about the matter at all, he would 
formulate the problem of the formation of capital as fol- 
lows : How can we account for the origin of capital on the 
supposition that prices are regulated by the average price, 
i. e., ultimately by the value of the commodities? I say 
'ultimately,' because average prices do not directly co- 
incide with the values of commodities as Adam Smith, Ri- 
cardo, and others believe." ^ So far as the first volume of 
" Capital " is concerned, therefore, Marx cannot find escape 
in the discrepancy between price and value. The different 
attitude adopted in the third volume will be taken up 

1 Capital, i, p. 89, n. 



126 SOCIALISM 

briefly below in connection with the profit-rate implications 
of the surplus-value doctrine, which must now be consid- 
ered. 

Having explained how the value of commodities is regu- 
lated, Marx proceeds to use this value concept to illumine 
the process of the exploitation of labor by capital. Our 
friend Moneybags, he puts it, takes advantage of labor's 
value-creating property. He finds the commodity, labor- 
power or capacity for labor, offered for sale on the market 
by the laborer, who is at once free to bargain for its sale 
and without other resource than the proceeds of this trans- 
action. This commodity Moneybags buys for a definite 
period, paying for it its full value, this value being, as in the 
case of other commodities, determined by the labor-time 
socially necessary for its production, and thus equivalent 
to the value of the means of subsistence for the laborer and 
his substitutes, his children. The capitalist finds his pro- 
fit in the circumstance that labor-power has the peculiarity 
of being a source not only of value but of more value than 
it has itself. In, say, half a day, the laborer can produce 
a value equivalent to the cost of his labor-power. He has, 
however, sold his whole working capacity. He is obliged to 
continue working beyond this point and in the other half 
day he produces value for the capitalist, surplus value in 
short. The value of labor-power and the value of the pro- 
duct which labor can be made to yield are two entirely dif- 
ferent magnitudes; it was this difference that the capitalist 
had in view in purchasing the labor-power. Constant cap- 
ital, that part of capital invested in plant and material, 
merely reproduces its own value in the process of manu- 
facture. Variable capital, on the contrary, the portion 
invested in labor-power, reproduces its own value and the 
whole of the surplus appropriated by the capitalist. The 
rate of surplus value is determined by the proportion be- 
tween surplus value and variable capital, the rate of profit 
by the proportion between surplus value and the total cap- 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 127 

ital. The capitalist increases his surplus value by increas- 
ing either the length of the working day, the intensity of 
labor, or the productiveness of labor: the records of English 
factory development are black with evidences of all these 
forms of exploitation.^ 

The theory of surplus value stands or falls with the labor 
theory of value. " If we compare the two processes of pro- 
ducing value and of creating surplus value," Marx main- 
tains, *' we see that the latter is nothing but the continua- 
tion of the former beyond a certain point." ^ The theory is 
based on the assumption that the labor factor in produc- 
tion has the power, and the sole power, to create value. It 
is open, therefore, to all the objections which may be urged 
against this assumption. It errs in assuming that value is 
a phenomenon which has its origin solely or in determining 
degree in the field of production. It anticipates later pro- 
ductivity theories in making the untenable assumption 
that it is possible to isolate the contribution made by one 
of several factors in production, either from the technolog- 
ical or from the value standpoint. It errs;, consequently in 
assuming that we can determine the contribution made by 
constant capital to the value of the product, and identify 
it with the value consumed. Its assertion of the solp valid- 
ity of the factor of labor in creating value and surplus 
value rests on no more substantial ground than a philo- 
sophical presumption of the superior validity of personality; 
as untenable as the parallel assumption of the superior va|- 
idity of Nature which lay behind the theory of the Physio- 
crat that only the factor land could create value. The dash 
of Hegel has not improved Quesnay. And when Marx 
makes the labor employed in the field of production the 
sole source of surplus value, to the exclusion of labor en- 
gaged in commerce,^ he is merely ringing the changes on 
another outworn economic shibboleth, the overstressed 
distinction between productive and unproductive labor. 
1 Capital, i, chap. 6-22. * Ilrid., p. 110. » Ibid., ii, chap. 0. 



128 SOCIALISM 

f Why, further, should the whole increase in the value be 
t attributed to the workman, to "the actual producer, the 
laborer"? ^ One of the most astounding gaps in the Marx- 
ian theory is the almost total neglect of the function of the 
entrepreneur in modern industry, in seeking out the op- 
portunities for development, in bringing together the vari- 
ous requisites of production, in the directing of operationsij 
and marketing the product. It is beside the point to reply 
that much of modern business enterprise is socially unpro- 
ductive, is a mere Dick Turpin redistribution of others' 
gains, for here Marx is in the industrial, not the financial, 
sphere, dealing with the production of goods, not of stocks 
and bonds. Marx persistently refuses to make any ade- 
quate allowance for entrepreneur acti^nty except as ex- 
erted to furthering the exploitation of the laborer. 2 It is 
not necessary to believe in the necessary equivalence, in ac- 
tual dynamic conditions, of productive activity and distri- 
butive reward, or to indulge in Mallockian dithyrambs on 
Ability with a capital A, to find here an error which vitiates 
the whole Marxian system. Marx has described with elo- 
quent fervor the increased efficiency of collective action, 

* Capital, i, p. 124. 

* Marx endeavors to distinguish between "the work of control made 
necessary by the cooperative character of the labor-process" and "the 
different work of control necessitated by the capitalist character of that 
process and the antagonism of interests between capitalist and laborer 
... a function of exploitation." — Capital, i, pp. 198-99. Cf. iii, chap. 
23, where Marx makes an interesting analysis of the relation between 
profit and interest, concluding with the suggestion that the rise of a sep- 
arate managerial class has made the industrial capitalist superfluous. In- 
cidentally a point is raised which shows the logical reduction to the absurd 
of the doctrine that profit has its sole source in exploited wage-labor. 
"In one case known to me," Engels adds in a note to Marx's text, "after 
the crisis of 1868, a bankrupt manufacturer became the paid wage-laborer 
of his former employees. This factory was operated after the bankruptcy 
of its owner by a laborers' cooperative, and its former owner was em- 
ployed as manager." — Ibid., p. 456, n. By what device of lengthened 
hours or intensified labor his employers sweated their surplus value out 
of "the paid wage-laborer," its sole possible source, is not stated. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 129 

■ — "the new power, namely, the collective power of masses. 
. . . Just as the offensive power of a squadron of cavalry 
or the defensive power of a regiment of infantry is essen- 
tially different from the sum of the offensive or defens- 
ive powers of the individual cavalry or infantry soldiers 
taken separately, so the sum total of the mechanical forces 
exerted by isolated workmen differs from the social force 
that is developed when many hands take part simultane- 
ously in one and the same undivided operation." ^ Does a 
Ney or a Sheridan count for nothing in a cavalry charge ? 
Is "the offensive power of the cavalry charge," "the social 
force" of the group of workmen, a thing quite independent 
of the genius and the impelling power of the leader.? Marx j 
is right in recognizing that the force of men in a group is ' 
quite other than the sum of their individual powers; he is 
wrong in not seeing that the sum total varies with e very- 
leader, that the power of each worker varies not only with 
his companions but with his leaders, that a raw recruit 
under Napoleon the Great is vastly other than the same 
recruit under Napoleon the Little. 

It is important to note that in his recognition of the 
new force developed by collective action, Marx, following 
Proudhon's lead,^ proceeds to outline what is practically 
a distinct and contradictory theory of the origin of profit. 
The capitalist pays the hundred men he has hired "the 
value of 100 independent labor-powers, but he does not pay 
for the combined labor-power of the hundred. Being inde- 
pendent of each other, the laborers are isolated persons, 
who enter into relations with the capitalist, but not with 
one another. . . . Hence the productive power developed 
by the laborer when working in cooperation is the pro- 
ductive power of capital. . . . Because this power costs 
capital nothing, and because, on the other hand, the laborer 

» Capital, i, pp. 194-195. 

2 Cf. Leroy-Beaulieu, Le Collectivisme, p. 278; Marx, Poverty of Philo- 
aophy, p. 67. 



/ 



130 SfCIALISM 

himself does not develop it before his labor belongs to capi- 
tal, it appears as a power with which capital is endowed by 
Nature — a productive power that is immanent in capital." ^ 
Virtually, therefore, surplus value is no longer the difference 
between the value of the individual's maintenance and the 
value of his product, but the difference between the value 
of the labor-powers of the separate individuals and the 
value of the combined labor-pqwer of the collective force. 
Obviously one or other of these explanations of the source 
of profit must be wrong. And not only does Marx sug- 
gest this other source of surplus value ; he even admits 
that the new power is the "productive power of capi- 
tal," and therefore, it may be inferred, not a product of 
exploitation of the laborers. 

Again, the time element in the productive process is 
coolly disregarded. " In determining the value of the yarn," 
TVIarx declares, " ... all the special processes carried on 
at various times and in different places, which were neces- 
sary, first to produce the cotton and the wasted portion of 
the spindle, and then with the cotton and the spindle to 
spin the yarn, may together be looked on as different and 
successive phases of one and the same process. The whole 
of the labor in the yarn is past labor; and it is a matter of 
no importance that the operations necessary for the pro- 
duction of its constituent elements were carried on at times 
which, referred to the present, are more remote than the 
final operation of spinning." ^ It would be equally a "mat- 
ter of no importance," Marx would logically have to admit, 
whether the workmen were paid at the beginning of the 
long process or at the end. 

Is it possible to put the surplus- value theory on sounder 
foundation by maintaining that values are not exchange 
values.'' This query brings up the often-threshed-out ques- 
tion of the contradiction between the first and third vol- 
umes of " Capital," which need be only briefly touched on 
» Capital, i. p. 199. ' Ibid., p. 104. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 131 

here. The doctrine of surplus value, as laid down in the 
first volume, asserts that surplus value accrues only on the 
variable capital, the wage investment. It would follow, 
.then, that the rate of profit in different industries would 
vary with the proportion of laborers employed. But it is 
patent that this is not the case: "every one knows that a 
cotton spinner who, reckoning the percentage on the whole 
of his applied capital, employs much constant and little va« 
liable capital, does not on account of this pocket less profit 
or surplus value than the baker, who relatively sets in mo- 
tion much variable and little constant capital." ^ The same 
difficulty proved a stumbling-block in Rodbertus' labor 
theory of value. Marx promised its solution in the forth- 
coming third volume. The second volume, " Capitalist Cir- 
culation," a modernized Tableau Economique, containing 
some keen analysis, much wearisome scholastic repetition 
and arithmetical calculation, and little of the fire and heat 
that make the first volume a living force, appeared under 
Engels' editorship in 1885, two years after Marx's death. 
In the preface Engels challenged those who had been de- 
preciating Marx's work in comparison with Rodbertus' 
theories, to demonstrate what the economics of Rodbertus 
could accomplish, to "show in what way an equal average 
rate of profit can and must come about, not only without 
a violation of the law of value, but by means of it." ^ The 
third volume did not appear until 1894, twenty-seven years 
after the publication of the first, although the greater part 
of it had been drafted in the sixties. Great was the aston- 
ishment when the oracular solution turned out to be a virtual 
abandonment of the earlier value theory in favor of an- 
ordinary cost of production doctrine. Profits, Marx now 
declared, are equalized by competition. Originally the 
rates differed in accordance with the proportion of variable 
capital employed, but through the working of competition 
capital is withdrawn from the sphere with low profit rates 
» Capital, i, p. 181. * Ibid., ii, p. 28. 



132 SOCIALISM 

and thrown into the industry with the higher rates, so that 
the rates are reduced to an average throughout the whole 
field of industry. It follows that commodities are not sold 
at their values, but in accordance with their price of pro- 
duction, that is, their cost price plus the average profit.^ 

Marx has solved the one contradiction by another. He 
reconciles the law of surplus value with the fact of equal' 
ized profits only by abandoning the foundation on which 
f that law was based. The discrepancy between the first vol- 
ume, in which prices are held to conform at least ultimately 
to values, and the third, in which they are normally at vari- 
/ ance, is patent. Marx attempts indeed to maintain consist- 
ency by showing that the law of labor-value is still in oper- 
ation, even though in a different way. It governs the price 
of individual products, he declares: "if the labor-time re- 
quired for the production of these commodities is reduced, 
prices fall ; if it is increased, prices rise, other circumstances 
remaining the same."^ Doubtless, "other circumstances 
remaining the same," changes in one factor will be followed 
by corresponding changes in the result, but this is hardly 
equivalent to proving that the other circumstances so cava- 
lierly disposed of are not factors of equal importance. No 
more successful is the contention that, after all, "the sum 
of the profits of all spheres of production must be equal to 
the sum of surplus values, and the sum of the prices of 
production of the total social product equal to the sum 
of its values." ^ As Bohm-Bawerk has sufficiently shown, 
a law of value has to do only with explaining the propor- 
tions in which separate commodities exchange with one 
another, not with a total in which all differences are aver- 
aged out.'* What a total of prices, of ratios and propor- 
tions, could be, is not clearly visible. 

Aside from its inconsistency with his previous theory, 
Marx's doctrine of the equalization of profits by competi- 

1 Capital, iii, chap. 8-12. « Ibid., p. 208. ' Ibid., p. 204. 

'^ Op. cii., pp. 70, seq.; cf. Komorzynski, op. cit., p. 292. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 133 

tion is open to objection in its assertion of a primitive su- 
periority of profits in industries in which variable capital 
predominated. There has not as a matter of historical fact 

been any such trend from primitive inequality to present j 

equality. "The equality of profits," declares Professor 
Lexis, "appears pari passu with capitalistic methods and 
in inseparable connection with them; much as in the em- 
bryo, the circulation of the blood develops pari passu with 
the development of shape and form."^ 

With the shift from a labor-cost theory of value to the I 
ordinary cost-of- production basis, the ground is cut from 
under the doctrine of exploitation, based, as that doctrine 
is, on the assumption that only variable capital producesj 
surplus value. Had the third volume of "Capital" ap- 
peared at the same time as the first, little would have been 
heard about "exploitation" from socialist platforms. So 
far from its being true that Marx's severest stricture on 
the iniquities of the capitalist system is that "contained 
by implication in his development of the manner in which 
actual exchange value of goods systematically diverges 
from their real (labor-cost) value," ^ Marx explicitly and 
repeatedly states, in his analysis of surplus value and the 
bitter arraignment of capitalism deduced from it, that 
"I assume that commodities are sold at their value."' 
The whole doctrine of surplus value and the laws of cap- 
italist development based upon it rest on the assumption 
that this theory of value affords an interpretation of actual 
market facts. If it is so meant, it confessedly breaks down; 
if it is not so meant, the whole theory is hopelessly futile 
and up in the air. The defenders of the labor theory of 
value may choose either horn of the dilemma, that it is an 

1 Quarterly Journal of Economics, x, p. 10; and cf. Sombart in Braun's 
Archiv, vii, p. 585. 

^ Veblen, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xx, p. 587. 

» Capital, \, p. 324. Cf. i, p. 376: "In the chapters on the production 
of surphis value it was constantly presupposed that wages are at least 
equal to the value of labor-power." 



134 SOCIALISM 

erroneous solution of the problem of exchange value, or 
that it is not a solution of the problem at all. It is no 
defense to urge the permissibility of using working hypo- 
theses known not to correspond to facts, and later correct- 
ing the deductions reached in light of the omitted facts, for 
here no corrections are made of the deductions reached; it 
must not be lost sight of that the Marxian theory of cap- 
italist development is based, not on the amended and in- 
nocuous theory of value reached in the third volume, but 
on the crass labor-value theory of the first volume. If the 
esoteric interpretation of Marx is correct, if the theory of 
value and the theory of surplus-value exploitation are 
merely hypotheses which do not correspond to reality, the 
whole popular propaganda of Marxism is built on a sham, 
and the milhons of workingmen who have been told by 
press and pamphlet and platform orator that here was the 
scientifically discovered key to all their ills have been fed 
on an empty scholastic exercise, a many-hundred-paged 
disquisition on "the balance between goods ... in point 
of the metaphysical reality of the life process." 

Doubtless in the discussion of Marxism a disproportionate 
amount of attention has been centred on the value and sur- 
plus-value theories to the exclusion of the theories of capi- 
talist accumulation. This prominence is due in part to their 
ready availability for comminatory purposes. Declarations 
that all value is created by the toil of the laborer, and that 
the capitalist's income comes from the appropriation of a 
share of this value, were of obvious demagogic usefulness, 
especially when presented without any of the qualifications 
Marx attached. Marx himself professed to base the claim 
and the coming of socialism on a calm, scientific analysis 
of existing industrial forces and their inevitable outcome, 
and not on the " right of the workman to the full produce 
of his labor," or on an appeal to the moral indignation of the 
oppressed and the sympathetic. Yet even in Marx ethical 
judgment and partisan passion are never far distant and 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 135 

In his less scientific followers this moral aspect of his theo- 
ries attains more marked predominance. 

The stress laid on these doctrines is also due to their real 
importance in the closely knit Marxian theory. Recent 
disciples, it is true, have sought to save the rest of the 
system from discredit by declaring that no necessary con- 
nection exists between the value and the surplus-value 
doctrine and the doctrines of capitalist development. "A 
scientific basis for socialism or communism," Bernstein con- 
cludes, " cannot be supported on the fact only that the wage- 
worker does not receive the full value of the product of his 
work. ' Marx,' saysEngels in the preface to the ' Poverty of 
Philosophy,' 'has never based his communistic demands 
on this, but on the necessary collapse of the capitalist mode 
of production which is daily being more nearly brought to 
pass before our eyes.' " ^ The quotation from Engels, on 
which this judgment is founded by Bernstein and Sim- 
khovitch, is oddly misapplied. A reference to Engels' con- 
text shows that the foundation that Marx rejected is not 
the labor theory of value, but the ethical condemnation 
of the capitalist system which the English socialists of the 
post-Ricardian school deduced from that theory.^ Marx 

1 Evolutionary Socialism, p. 39. Cf. Oppenheimer, Das Grundgeselz der 
Marxschen Gesellschaftslekre, p. 15; and Simkhovitch, Jahrbuch fiir 
Naiionalokonomik und Siatistik, xvii. Heft 6: "Marx's socialist demands 
and his theory of value are genetically related, but systematically 
considered there is no connection whatever between them. In saying this 
I merely repeat something which is self-evident to every philosophically 
educated person who has grasped the Marxian philosophy. Anybody who 
cares can find specific statements to that effect in Marx and Engels. So 
says Engels about the relation of Marx's socialism to his theory of value : 
'Marx therefore never based his communistic demands thereon, but on 
the inevitable breakdown of the capitalist mode of production which we 
daily see approaching its end.'" — Translated by Boudin, Theoretical 
System of Karl Marx, p. 150. 

2 "The above application of the theory of Ricardo, which shows to 
the workers that the totahty of social production, which is their product, 
belongs to them because they are the only real producers, leads direct to 
communism. But it is also, as Marx shows, false in form, economically 



136 SOCIALISM 

based his communistic demands on the inevitable collapse 
of capitalism, it is true, but he deduced the inevitability of 
this collapse from his value and surplus-value doctrines. 
It is impossible to preserve the Marxian superstructure 
while rejecting the corner-stone. 

speaking, because it is simply an application of morality to economics. 
. .- . We say, 'That is unjust, it ought not to be'; that has nothing what- 
ever to do with economics; we are only stating that this economic fact 
is La contradiction to our moral sentiment. That is why Marx has never 
based his communistic conclusions upon this, but rather on the necessary 
collapse of the capitalist mode of production which is being daily more 
nearly brought to pass before our eyes.'" — Poverty of Philosophy, trans- 
lated by Quelch, p. vi. 

The orthodox Marxian view on this point is trenchantly presented in 
the following passage from Boudin : " Our philosophically educated critic 
evidently got things somewhat mixed. Marx never based his communistic 
demands on the moral application of the Ricardian, or his own, theory of 
value. Nor on any morality for that matter. Therein he differed from 
the Utopian socialists who preceded him, and from such of those who 
followed him. who, like Bernstein for instance, have returned to the moral 
application of economic theories. That is why Bernstein and the rest 
of the Revisionists do not see the connection between the Marxian the- 
ory of value and his socialism. Any theory of value will do for them 
as long as it permits the moral application which they are after. And as 
any theory might be made to yield such a moral to those who look for it, 
they have become indifferent to theories of value in general. Not so with 
Marx. His socialism is scientific, as distinguished from Utopian based on 
moral applications, in that it is the result of 'the inevitable breakdown 
of the capitalistic mode of production.' But this ine\'itable breakdown 
can only be understood and explained by the aid of the Marxian theory 
of value. That is why this theory of value and his socialism are so inti- 
mately connected in his system. Marx based his socialism on his theory 
of value. But on its economic results, not on its moral application." 
— Boudin, pp. 151-152. 



•■^ 



M- 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS: III, THE LAW OF CAPITALIST 

DEVELOPMENT 

(a) Industrial Reserve Army 

Marx now proceeds to the third stage in his analysis of 
Capitahsm. The materiaHstic conception of history, we 
have seen, gave him the key to the explanation of this, as 
of previous eras, as the multiform expression of a class 
struggle between exploiter and exploited. In the theories 
of value and surplus value he set forth the mechanism of 
capitalist exploitation. In the law of capitalist develop- 
ment he sums up the tendencies which dominate the 
existing order, and seeks to demonstrate the immanent 
necessity at once of the breakdown of capitalism and of 
the coming of socialism. 

He begins by emphasizing the progressively increasing 
scale of capitalist production. The surplus value which the { 
vampire capital has sucked from labor ^ rests at the capital- 
ist's disposal. He may elect either to spend it in personal , 
enjoyment or to reinvest it in production. He is torn b^- / 
tween two passions, the passion for indulgence and the 
passion for accumulation. The capitalist of to-day is more 
likely than his grandfather to devote a considerable portion 
to luxury and display, the more so because a certain amount 
of conspicuous waste, "a conventional degree of prodigal- 
ity," becomes a business necessity as the basis for credit. 
Yet the other passion conquers. He shares with the miser 
the passion for wealth as wealth, while in addition the de- 

^ "Capital is dead labor that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living 
tabor and lives the more the more labor it sucks." — Capital, i, p. 134. 



138 SOCIALISM 

mands of competition make it constantly necessary to 
increase the size of his undertaking : " Competition makes 
the immanent laws of capitalist production to be felt by 
each individual capitalist as external coercive laws." ^ 
"Therefore save, save . . . accumulate, accumulate. That is 
Moses and the prophets. . . . Accumulation for accumu- 
lation's sake, production for production's sake. ... If, 
to classical economy, the proletarian is but a machine for 
the production of surplus value; on the other hand the cap- 
italist is, in its eyesionly a machine for the conversion of 
this surplus value into additional capital." '^ 

Marx proceeds to bonsider the effect of this automatic 
growth of capital on tl\e lot of the working class. The most 
important factor in this investigation is the composition 
of capital and the changes it undergoes : the composition of 
capital being the proportion between variable capital, the 
sum total of wages, and constant capital, the value of 
the plant and materials, or the proportion between capital 
goods and the living labor-power, according as the stand- 
point of value or the standpoint of technical composition 
is chosen. Two hypotheses are considered: first, that the 
proportion remains unchanged; second, that the constant 
capital grows faster than the variable. 

On the first hypothesis, Marx declares that any rise in 
wages will cut down profits, discourage accumulation, and 
lead eventually to a lowered wage again. In this argument 
he has merely refurbished one of the most questionable 
corollaries of that old wage-fund doctrine, "invented by 
God and Bentham," which he himself had vigorously criti- 
cised.^ His theory overlooks entirely the possibility of im- 
proved wages leading to increased efficiency and a higher 
productivity, with the result that profits would not be less- 
ened in the slightest. Nor does it follow that "a smaller 
part of revenue is capitalized," even with efficiency and 
productivity at a standstill and profits consequently falling. 

1 Capital, i, pp. 871-372. » Ibid., pp. 373-374. ' Ibid., p. 384. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 139 

If under revenue Marx means to include that portion of the 
product which falls to the workers, it is conceivable, though 
not highly probable, that the increased savings of the work- 
ers would make up for the decreased savings of the capital- 
ists. And if, as is more probable, he means by the term 
merely that part which falls to the capitalists, it is far from 
being certain that a fall in the profit or interest rate would 
lead to slackening accumulation. A fall in interest rate 
does not affect the almost automatic "saving" from great 
surplus incomes which exceed the bounds of sane personal 
expenditure, while it stimulates rather than hinders saving 
for the maintenance of a definite standard of living in the 
future.^ It may be observed that while Marx makes no ex- 
plicit statement as to the variations in the numbers seeking 
work, and holds vaguely that "accumulation of capital 
means increase of the proletariat," he evidently implies 
"the most favorable condition" of slower increase of popu- 
lation than of capital.^ 

It is, however, the second hypothesis, the relative in- 
crease of constant capital, on which Marx lays chief stress. 
In this investigation he recurs to the problem of the effect 
of machinery discussed at an earlier stage, ^ but approaches 
it from a somewhat different angle. Instead of considering 
the effect of the introduction of machinery in certain in- 
dustries primarily on the workmen in those trades, he takes 
society as a whole and studies the general results of the 
tendency of constant capital to gain at the expense of vari- 
able. This tendency is deduced from the fact that "with 1 
the division of labor in manufacture and with the use of 
machinery more raw material is worked up in the same 
time, and, therefore, a greater mass of raw material and 
auxiliary substances enter into the labor process," and 

^ Cf. Clark, Essentials of Economic Theory, chap, xx, and Hobson, 
Economics of Distribution, p, 158. 
* Cf. Kautsky, Karl Marx' Ockonomische Lehren, 12th edition, p. 236. 
' Capital, i, chap. 15; see above, p. 33. 



140 SOCIALISM 

from the growing concentration of industry and the in- 
creasing scale of its operations. It results in, or rather is 
identical with, a relative decrease of the capital expended 
j^ in the purchase of labor-power. A steam plow is an 
incomparably better instrument of production than an 
ordinary plow, but the capital it represents would em- 
ploy more men if laid out in ordinary plows. The rela- 
tively smaller proportion of capital available for the hire 
of laborers means that large numbers are unable to find 
employment. There grows up an "industrial reserve 
army," which is necessary for the smooth working of the 
capitalist system, making possible sudden expansions in 
new directions without dislocating existing industries. The 
ranks of this army may be swelled by the success of the 
capitalist in pressing a given quantity of labor out of fewer 
laborers by slave-driving methods. The pressure of this 
surplus population for employment forces those who have 
found positions to submit to overwork and lower wages. 
"Taking them as a whole, the general movements of wages 
are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction 
of the industrial reserve army. . . . They are therefore 
not determined by the variations of the absolute number 
of the working population, but of the varying proportions 
in which the working class is divided into active and reserve 
army." ^ 

This doctrine of the industrial reserve army is the cul- 
minating point in the Marxian theory of capitalist evolu- 
tion.2 Yet in this crucial section the reasoning is incredibly 
loose and the basis in facts most insecure. Grant that vari- 
able capital, by which Marx means virtually the outlay in 
wages, is decreasing relatively to capital as a whole. This, of 

1 Capital, ii, pp. 390-401. 

^ "The law of accumulation, with its corollary, the doctrine of the 
industrial reserve army, is the final term and the objective point of 
Marx's theory of capitalist production, just as the theory of labor-value 
is his point of departure." — Veblen, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xx. 
p. 589. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 141 

course, does not prevent its absolute increase. The extent 
of unemployment will increase only if the variable capital 
is increasing more slowly than the work-seeking popula- 
tion, not than all capital. It is, to adopt Marx's semi- 
wage-fund basis of reasoning, the proportion between vari- 
able capital and population which is really important, not 
the proportion between the constituent parts of capital. 
Marx's position would be justified only if he proved that 
population, or at least the amount of labor-power in the 
market, is bound to increase faster than variable capital. 
The nearest approach to an argument is the contention 
that, to quote Adam Smith, "poverty is favorable to gen- 
eration"; and, Marx continues, "not only the number of 
births and deaths but the absolute size of the families 
stand in inverse proportion to the height of wages and 
therefore to the amount of means of subsistence of which 
the different categories of laborers dispose." ^ Probably 
Marx is here nearer the truth than is Malthus, but what of 
it? If at all, this proposition is true only where a given 
degree of poverty exists to begin with, and Marx makes 
no attempt to demonstrate that the bulk of the working 
classes of England was as a matter of fact in that de- 
spairing, caste-barriered, and caste-contented stage where 
population is restrained by no considerations of prudence 
or hope of rising. At most, the proposition, if proved, only 
demonstrates that population increases faster in poverty 
than in luxury; it throws no light on the rate of its 
increase relatively to variable capital. 

Nor is Marx more fortunate in his appeal to facts. He 
quotes from the census returns of England and Wales in 
1851 and 1861 to prove his contention that opportunities 
of employment are decreasing.^ True, some of these trades 
selected show an absolute decrease of numbers employed, 
and if the totals are taken and compared with the total 
population at the different times (an operation which Marx 

^ Veblen, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xx, p. 405. ' Ibid., p. 396. 



142 SOCIALISM 

does not perform) it will be seen that there has been a rela> 
tive falling-off, that these trades offered fewer openings in 
proportion to the work-seeking population in 1861 than 
in 1851, But what tyro in statistics would imagine that 
that proved the proposition of a general decrease in employ- 
ment opportunities ? Marx has picked out fourteen of the 
hundreds of occupations, picked at random or because of 
their stationary or retrograde character, comb-making and 
chandlery lumped with coai- mining and cotton-weaving, 
and offers them as typical of the whole industrial situation. 
The fallacy lies in overlooking the fact that the very essence 
of modern industrial progress rests in the ability to satisfy 
specific wants with an ever smaller proportion of society's 
force of labor and capital, thus setting the rest free for the 
provision of new services and commodities. Had Marx 
taken the sum total engaged in all the branches of manu- 
facture at the two periods in question, he would have been 
compelled to admit that whereas in 1851, of every 1000 
there were 152 engaged in manufacturing, in 1861 there 
were 154 so engaged.^ The statistical basis of the doctrine 
of the industrial reserve army is as weak as its logical 
basis. 2 

' Based on Mulhall, Dictionary of Statistics, 1892, pp. 424, 444. 

* Marx's main contention, that variations in the composition of capital 
create an industrial reserve army, which is bound to increase with the 
ever-growing proportion of constant capital, does not stand analysis. His 
suggestion, adopted from Merivale, that a reserve of labor, however 
created, and whether increasing or decreasing, is necessary for the smooth 
working of the capitalist system, has more plausibility. It is necessary, 
according to Marx, in view of the great fluctuations in demand for labor 
in good times and bad times, that the capitalist should be able, when 
prosperity is at its height, to throw " great masses of men suddenly on the 
decisive points without injury to the scale of production in other spheres." 
There is much force in this. Yet it does not follow that cyclical fluctua- 
tions in demand for labor necessarily involve the unemployment of large 
numbers in times of depression. The distinction between labor-power and 
number of laborers, which Marx makes for another purpose (ibid., p. 399), 
serves to remind us that the worst consequences of fluctuation may be 
averted by altering the hours worked rather than the number employed. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 143 

This theory, it will be apparent, is radically different 
from the iron law of wages adopted by Lassalle, with en- 
thusiastic pessimism, from current classical economics, and 
frequently but erroneously saddled on Marx, whose dis- 
ciples forced its exclusion from the official programme 
of German Social Democracy at the Erfurt revision in 
1891. The Lassallian doctrine, a combination of Ricardian 
value theories and Malthusian population theories, asserts 
first, a normal point about which wages gravitate, namely, 
the barely necessary means of subsistence, and second, a 
force which makes wages gravitate towards this point, 
namely, the tendency of population to increase with pro- 
sperity and decrease in adversity.^ Marx has also a sub- 
sistence-wage doctrine; in his exposition of the theory of 
surplus value he maintained that the value of labor-power 
is fixed by its labor-cost, by the quantity of labor necessary 
to produce the means of subsistence. Especially in his 
version stress is laid on the historical and conventional 
influences; the standard of living is not a physiological 
minimum, but varies indefinitely with the traditions of the 

thus preventing the concentration of unemployment on a hapless minor- 
ity. Further, so far as unemployment of a minority does result, recent 
developments in insurance against unemployment show that it is quite 
possible to make each industry pay for the upkeep of whatever reserve 
it finds necessary to provide. Cf. Beveridge, Unemployment, a Problem 
of Industry. 

' "The merciless economical rule, under which the present system 
fixes the rate of wages, in obedience to the so-called law of supply and 
demand for labor, is this: that the average wages always remain reduced 
to that rate which in a people is barely necessary for existence and pro- 
pagation; a matter governed by the customary manner of living of each 
people. That is the inexorable point about which the real wages always 
gravitate; neither keeping long above or below it. Were it to remain for 
any length of time above it, there would be an increase of marriages, from 
which would flow a greatly increased number of the working element, 
which would invariably bring down the wages below its former rate. The 
wages also cannot fall with anything like permanence below the ordinary 
rate of living; as from it would flow emigration, celibacy, restraint in the 
number of births, circumstances in the end lessening the number of labor- 
ers." — Lassalle, Open Letter, translated by Ehmann and Bader, pp. 17-18. 



144 SOCLVLISM 

working class. ^ In this part of his theory Marx is fully 
as optimistic as Lassalle; a subsistence level which includes 
all conventional requirements is quite consistent with 
steady improvement. But the case is different when the 
second portions of the two theories are compared. The 
Lassallian doctrine implies a rhythmic readjustment of 
wages above and below the normal point. Marx's industrial 
reserve army theory, based on a repudiation of Malthus 
and all his works, offers the possibility of a fall in wages 
becoming cumulatively worse, without any compensating 
action. 2 

The relation between the two Marxian positions on the 
wages question — the subsistence and the industrial re- 
serve army theories — is not made clear. In the chapter 
on the conversion of surplus value into capital, there is a- 
passage which at first glance appears to imply that the sub- 
sistence theory was merely a hypothesis not entirely borne 
out by fact. After reminding us that "in the chapters on 
the production of surplus value it was constantly pre- 
supposed that wages are at least equal to the value of labor- 
power," Marx adds, "Forcible reduction of wages below/ 
this value plays, however, in practice, too important a part 
for us not to pause upon it for a moment. It in fact trans- 
forms within certain limits the laborer's necessary con- 

* "The number and extent of the workman's so-called necessary 
wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product 
of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the 
degree of civilization of a country — more particularly on the conditions 
under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in 
which, the class of free laborers has been formed. In contradistinction, 
therefore, to the case of other commodities, there enters into the deter- 
mination of the value of labor-power an historical and moral element." 
— Capital, i, p. 93. Lassalle also recognizes conventional elements in the 
standard of living. 

2 Marx comments trenchantly on the doctrine set forth above: " Before, 
in consequence of the rise in wages, any positive increase of the popula- 
tion really fit for work could occur, the time would have passed again 
and again, during which the industrial campaign must have been carried 
through, the battle fought and won." — Ibid., p. 401. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 145 

sumption fund into a fund for the accumulation of capital. 
. . . The constant tendency of capital is to force the cost 
of labor back toward this zero." ^ It will be seen, however, 
referring to the instances given, that a fall in wages through 
a reduction in the standard of living from the adoption 
of cheaper or adulterated foods is an illustration rather than 
a violation of the subsistence theory, while the poor-law 
example cited has to do with a situation where wages are 
fixed by legal authority, not by competition, and thus falls 
outside the limits within which Marx is pursuing the trail 
of capitalism.^ If, then, both the doctrines are supposed to 
be retained, Marx is faced with this difficulty: either the 
subsistence level of wages and the level fixed by the com- 
petition of the industrial reserve army are independent, in 
which case we have two unreconciled wage doctrines, or 
there is a causal connection between the fluctuations of the 
industrial reserve army and the fluctuations of the stand- 
ard of living, in which case there is obvious circular reason- 
ing, the existence of the industrial reserve army being thus 
assumed in the proof of the surplus- value theory and sur- 
plus value later taken as the basis of the formation of the 
industrial reserve army. Since thus far at least prices of 

1 Capital, i, p. 376. After quoting a representative of the "innermost 
secret soul of English Capitalism" who sighs for a reduction of the English 
laborer's standard, including brandy, gin, tea, sugar, foreign fruit, strong 
beer, tobacco and snuff, to the French (agricultural) laborer's level of 
bread, fruit, herbs, roots, dried fish, and "water or other small liquors," 
Marx proceeds: "Twenty years later an American humbug, the baronized 
Yankee, Benjamin Thomson (alias Count Rumford), followed the same 
line of philanthropy to the great satisfaction of God and man. His 
'Essays' are a cookery-book with receipts of all kinds for replacing, by 
some succedaneum, the ordinary dear food of the laborer. . . . With the 
advance of capitalistic production, the adulteration of food rendered 
Thomson's ideal superfluous. At the end of the eighteenth and during the 
first ten years of the nineteenth century, the English farmers and land- 
lords enforced the absolute minimum of wage by paying the agricultural 
laborers less than the minimum in the form of wages and the remainder 
in the shape of parochial relief." 

2 Ibid., p. 96. 



146 SOCIALISM 

labor as of other commodities are assumed to be equal to 
values, there is no escape from this dilemma through the 
plea of their divergence. 

(6) Increasing Misery 

But to return to Marx's forecast of the development of 
capitalist society, especially so far as the workers are con- 
cerned. The climax of his arraignment is his picture of the 
misery, slavery, and degradation into which the working 
class are to sink deeper and deeper until the day of revolu- 
tion dawns. He reiterates the charges brought against the 
capitalist system to the effect that "all methods for raising 
the social productiveness of labor are brought about at the 
cost of the individual laborer; all means for the develop- 
ment of production transform themselves into means of 
domination over and exploitation of the producer; they 
mutilate the laborer into a fragment of a man, degrade him 
to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every 
remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; 
they estrange f::Om him the intellectual potentialities of the 
labor process in the same proportion as science is incorpo- 
rated in it as an independent power; they distort the con- 
ditions under which he works, subject him during the labor 
process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; 
they transform his lifetime into workingtime and drag his 
wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capi- 
talism." Then, occupying new ground, he declares that the 
formation of the industrial reserve army involves a cumu- 
lative degradation; not only are things in an evil state but 
they must grow continually worse. For " all methods for the 
production of surplus value are at the same time methods 
of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation be- 
comes again a means for the development of those methods. 
It follows, therefore, that in proportion as capital accumu- 
lates, the lot of the laborer, be his payment high or low, 



THE MiVRXIAN ANALYSIS 147 

must grow worse. The law, finally, that always equili- 
brates the relative surplus population or industrial reserve 
army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law 
rivets the laborer to capital more firmly than the wedges 
of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an 
accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation 
of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, 
at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, 
slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the 
opposite pole — i.e., on the side of the class which produces 
its own product in the form of capital. . . . Along with the 
constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, 
who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process 
of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, 
slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows 
the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in 
numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very 
mechanism of the process of capitalist production it- 
self." ^ The conclusion is in essence the same as the 
briefer forecast made in the Communist Manifesto: "The 
modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the 
progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the con- 
ditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, 
and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and 
wealth." ^ 

This climax of pessimism is also a climax of unfulfilled 
prophesying. No social fact is better established than that 
the forty years which have passed since Marx penned this 
dismal forecast have brought the working classes in every 
civilized country not increasing degradation, misery, and 
enslavement, but increasing material welfare, freedom and 
opportunity of development. This betterment is so patent 
that it is necessary to cite in proof only a few typical facts 
out of the mass of evidence available. It is undeniable that 

1 Capital, i, pp. 406-107, 487. 
» P. 31. 



148 



SOCIALISM 



wages have risen all along the line, whether money wages 
or real wages be considered,^ Equally significant are the 
statistics of consumption of those articles in the demand 
for which the working classes exercise a preponderating in- 
fluence. The per capita consumption of many commodities 
— wheat flour, cocoa, coffee, cotton, currants and raisins, 
meat, rice, sugar, tea, tobacco, wool, wine, spirits, malt and 
^)eer — in the United Kingdom shows an increase of over 
twenty per cent since Marx wrote.^ Further, it should be 
remembered that in addition to his heightened individual 
purchasing power the modem workman shares in those 
many free public services which state or private bene- 
ficence places at his disposal, — schools, parks, museums, 

1 Out of the mass of statistics bearing out this point the following 
table from Bowley may be selected for its brevity and authoritativeness: 

Movements of Real and Nominal Wages in the United Kingdom, 
France, and the United States, from 1844-53 to 1884-93 

















Increase frcm 




1844 


1864 


1864 


1874 


1884 




1844-63 




to '53 


to '63 


to '73 


to '83 


to '93 


1891 


to 1884-93 


United Kingdom, Nominal 


61 


73 


82 


03 


95 


100 


64% 


United Kingdom, Real 


63 


61 


69 


82 


97 


100 


88 


France, Nominal 


62 


65 


73 


86 


95 


100 


92 


France, Real 


55 


61 


67 


78 


94 


100 


81 


United States, Nominal 


63 


68 


72 


86 


95 


100 


88 


United States, Real 


64 


63 


67 


76 


95 


100 


85 



— Bowley, Econ. Jour., viii, p. 488. 

More recent tendencies in the United States, for example, show a slower 
rate of increase in real wages. " As compared in each case with the aver- 
age for the years from 1890 to 1899, the average wages per hour in 1907 
were 28.8 per cent higher, and the average hours of labor per week were 
5.0 per cent lower. . . . The retail price of the principal articles of food, 
weighted according to family consumption of the various articles, was 
20.6 per cent higher. . . . The purchasing power of an hour's wages in 
1907 was 6.8 per cent higher, and of a full week's wages 1.5 per cent 
greater." — Bulletin, Bureau of Labor, July, 1908, pp. 1-6. 

On German conditions, cf. Sombart: "In the kingdom of Saxony the 
persons with an income of less than 500 marks formed 51.51 per cent 
of the population in 1879, only 36.59 per cent in 1894, and 28.29 percent 
m 1900. In Prussia in 1892, 70.27 per cent of the people possessed an in- 
come of less than 900 roark.s, in 1900, 62.41 per cent, and in 1906 only 
66.2 per cent." — Sozialismus vnd soziale Beicegung, 6th edition, p. 96. 

* Journal, Royal Statistical Society, Dec, 1899. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 



149 



and libraries. If we turn to the mortality tables, the al- 
most unbroken fall of the death-rate bears witness in the 
same direction, and a study of the occupational rate makes 
it evident that the improvement has been general through- 
out all classes of society.^ Housing conditions in the coun- 
try which Marx considered the classic land of capitalism 
reveal steady betterment.^ The same tale is told by the 
reports of friendly society funds, trade-union incomes, and 



' Annual Death-Rates per 1000 Persons, 1850-1905 



Year England and Walet 


France Prussia 


Belgium 


1850 


20.8 




21.4 26.1 


21.0 


1860 


21.2 




21.4 23.7 


19.S 


1870 


22.9 




28.4 27.2 


23.3 


1880 


20.5 




22.9 25.5 


22.3 


1890 


19.5 




22.8 24.0 


20.85 


1900 


18.2 




21.9 21.8 


19.3 


1905 


16.2 




19.6 19.6 


16.5 


•MPARATivE Mortality 


OP Males in Different 


Occupations 


1890-2 


AND 1900-2, IN England and Wales 


Occupation 


1S90-2 


1900-2 


Occupation 


1890-2 1900-2 


1. Clergyman 


615 


615 


22. Farm laborer 


731 672 


2. Barrister 


950 


739 


40. Printer 


1267 035 


3. Law clerk 


1237 


880 


45. Baker 


1061 8S2 


4. Physician 


1118 


970 


59. Metal-worker 


1283 »77 


B. Schoolmaster 


698 


699 


60. Bricklayer 


1160 862 


6. Artist 


900 


760 


74. Cotton manufacturer 


1318 1037 


11. Railway engineei 


r 934 


682 


75. Lace manufacturer 


819 831 


12. Railway guard 


953 


773 


83. Coal-miner 


1068 846 


17. Seaman 


1564 


1547 


95. General laborer 


1413 1987 


18. Dock laborer 


2114 


1374 


105. Other occupations 


980 837 


21. Farmer 


651 


562 







99 out of 105 occupations show a decrease. 
• 65lh Annual Report, Registrar-General of England and Wales, 1908. 

* Housing Conditions, England and Wales 





Total number of occupants of 
each class of tenements 


Class of 
Tenements 


Number 


Percentage of 
population 




1891 


1901 


1891 


1901 


Tenements of 1 room 
Tenements of 2 rooms 
Tenements of 3 rooms 
Tenements of 4 rooms 
Tenements of 6 rooms or more 


640,410 

2,416,617 

3,227,464 

6,814,069 

15,903,965 


607,763 

2,158,644 

3,186,640 

7,130,062 

19,544,734 


2.2 

8.3 

11.1 

23.5 

54.9 


1.6 

6.6 

9.8 

21.9 

60.1 




29,002,525 


32,527,843 


100.0 


100.0 



— Section ii. Public Health and Social Conditions, Cd. 4671, London, 
<909; throughout an admirable and coavenient review of English social 
dynamics since 1850. 



150 SOCIALISM 

savings-banks deposits.^ And if we consider the statistical 
evidence which Marx himself brought forward in this con- 
nection the result is the same. As usual, it is scanty and 
rather scrappy, used as buttress, not foundation. Appro- 
priately the examples are all taken from England, "the 
classical example, . . . because it holds the foremost 
place in the world market, [and] because capitalist produc- 
tion is here alone completely developed." ^ There are a cou- 
ple of sentences affirming that the cost of living was increas- 
ing, based on orphan asylum records for brief periods.^ 
Alongside Marx's deductions from this scanty evidence 
may be set for comparison the results of the British Board 
of Trade's investigations in the average retail prices of 
food to workmen's families for a quarter-century.* Next 
Marx turns to " official pauperism, or that part of the work- 
ing class which has forfeited its condition of existence (the 
sale of labor-power) and vegetates upon public alms.'* 
The period from 1856 to 1865, he continues, reveals a 
steady growth, which would be greater were it not for the 
fact that "the official statistics become more and more mis- 
leading as to the actual extent of pauperism in proportion, 
as with the accumulation of capital, the class struggle, and 
therefore the class consciousness of the workingmen de- 
velop, e. g., the barbarity in the treatment of paupers, at 
which the English press have cried out so loudly during 
the past two years, is of ancient date." ^ While the many 

* Public Health and Social Conditions, section vi. 
» CapitaJ,, i, p. 408. 

' " As to the cheapening of the means of subsistence, the official sta- 
tistics, e. g., the accounts of the London Orphan Asylum, show an increase 
in price of 20 per cent, for the average of the three years 1860-62 com- 
pared with 1851-53. In the following three years, 1863-65, there was a 
progressive rise in the price of meat, butter, milk, sugar, salt, coals, and 
a number of other necessary means of subsistence." — Ibid., p. 411. 

* Memorandum of Board of Trade on British and Foreign Trade and In- 
dustrial Conditions, 1903, p. 216. Cf. also memorandum in Report of Poor- 
Law Commission, 1909, ix. Appendix xxi, E. 

» Cajntal, i, p, 412. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 151 

changes in the system of relief make accurate compari- 
son impossible, it is worth noting that in 1908 the average 
daily number of paupers relieved in England and Wales 
was 25.7 per thousand of the population, as against an 
average of 46.7 in the period to which Marx refers. That 
this decrease in pauperism is not due to any "barbarity 
in treatment," but has gone along with a steady increase 
in the humanity, the discrimination, and the efficiency of 
administration, no one familiar with poor-law affairs will 
deny, even though opinion be equally unanimous that 
there is still great room for improvement in the treatment 
of those in need of public assistance.^ 

So untenable is the assertion that the condition of the 
working classes is growing worse that the defenders of the 
Marxist faith to-day frequently shift ground. Kautsky, on 
whom the mantle of Marx as chief expounder of the faith 
of German social democracy has fallen, has been particu- 
larly ingenious in attempting to explain away the master's 
error. 2 He finds comfort in the contention that if conditions 
in the older capitalist countries are improving, new regions 
are continually being opened up to exploitation, and that 
in Italy and Russia and China, at all events, misery is grow- 
ing, — a contention doubtful in itself, apparent increase in 
misery frequently meaning only that the operations have 
been shifted from the obscurity of the overworked domes- 
tic industry to the blazing publicity of the factory, and of 
no avail to buttress the contention of inevitable increasing 
misery in the lands where the modern industry is well estab- 
lished. He points also to the increase in the number of 
women in shop and factory work, failing to attach due im- 
portance to the extent to which this, as pointed out above, 
merely represents a shifting of the place of employment, 
or is due to the influence of the emancipation of women; 
rings the changes on the monotony of the workman's toil, 

^ Cf. Report of Royal Commission on the Poor-Laws, 1909, i-iii. 
' Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm, pp. 114-128. 



152 SOCIALISM 

without attempting to prove that it grows any more mono- 
tonous, and naively maintains that, after all, it is only the 
effects of the tendency to increasing misery which have 
been counteracted, the tendency itself remaining unabated. 
This of course concedes the whole case. A tendency the 
evil effects of which are continually counteracted by tend- 
encies working in the other direction is no cause for 
alarm. 

The contention in which the neo-Marxists find most 
comfort, however, is that, even if the working classes are 
better off to-day than yesterday, they are worse off re- 
latively to their richer neighbors, that the gap between rich 
and poor is wider than ever. Doubtless it is this comparison, 
the comparison between one's self and one's richer neigh- 
bor, not the comparison between one's self and one's grand- 
father, which is psychologically important; it is this which 
determines content or discontent, as men go. Doubtless, 
too, the case is not so favorable looked at from this stand- 
point, so far as may be judged from cursory observation. 
It is true that "the real statement should be, the rich are 
growing richer; many more people than formerly are grow- 
ing rich, the poor are growing better off." ^ As to what the 
rate of progress in each case is, and which is greater, it is 
not easy to determine. It is patent that there is a greater 
monetary gap between a Rockefeller or a Morgan and the 
average laborer than there was between corresponding fig- 
ures a generation ago. But that the rich, as a whole, are 
being enriched faster than the poor, as a whole, is probably 
not true. In the present unsatisfactory condition of sta- 
tistical data bearing on the subject, exact conclusions are 
difficult to reach. The recent estimate made by Professor 
Bowley, however, is careful and may be taken as approx- 
imately correct. He sums up his investigation of income 
changes in Great Britain in the past twenty years in the 
statement that "if we compare the period 1898-1902 with 
* Wright, Outline of Practical Sociology, p. 345. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 158 

1883 to 1887, it appears that the total income of the nation 
has increased not less than 38 per cent, the population 
about 15 per cent, and the average income per head not less 
than 20 per cent. . . . The part of the national income 
received as wages, on the basis of the figures given above, 
appears to have increased 50 per cent in total or 30 per cent 
per wage-earner; the part under the review of the Inland 
Revenue Department (approximately the amount liable to 
income tax) has increased from 35 to 40 per cent relatively 
to the population." ^ Thus the rate of increase among the 
wage-earners alone is decidedly greater than the increase in 
the nation as a whole. The ablest contribution made to the 
subject by any socialist writer is Mr. Chiozza-Money's 
study of the distribution of British wealth, " Riches and 
Poverty." The worst he can say is that the working classes 
are exactly at the point where they were forty years ago, re- 
latively to the rest of the nation. In his concluding sum- 
mary he accepts Dudley Baxter's estimate "that in 1867, 
the population being 30,000,000, the manual workers, then 
estimated to number 10,960,000, took £325,000,000 out 
of a total national income of £814,000,000," and puts be- 
side this his own computation, — very fair but not erring 
on the side of optimism, — that the manual workers in 
Britain to-day, numbering 15,000,000 out of 43,000,000, 
take about £655,000,000 out of a total estimated income 
of £1,710,000,000.2 That is, the manual workers in 1867, 
when they were 36.5 per cent of the population, took 
39.9 per cent of the total income; in 1907, when they were 
34.8 per cent of the population, they received 38.3 per 
cent of the wealth; had they still formed the same pro- 
portion of the whole population they would have received 
40.1 per cent in the latter year. At worst, then, society 
is marking time. 

Nor, were the contention of relative increase of misery 

' National Progress in Wealth and Trade since 1882. 
* Chiozza-Money, Riches and Poverty, 5th ed., p. 310. 



154 SOCIALISM 

sounder than it is, could it avail to rescue Marx. The 

" misery " which he forecasts cannot be made synonymous 
with "less luxury." "Agony, slavery, ignorance, brutality, 
mental degradation," these are sheer absolute terms which 
cannot be twisted to fit the situation of the man whose 
worst grievance is that his income has only doubled while 
his neighbor's has trebled. In the passage quoted from the 
Communist Manifesto the matter is removed beyond 
doubt, the comparison is explicitly not with other classes : 
"the modern laborer, instead of rising with the progress of 
industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the condition of 
his own class." As a German socialist protested in the Bern- 
stein debate at the Lubeck Congress, with reference to 
Kautsky 's attempts at reinterpretation : " If one alters one's 
opinion one should have the courage and the strength to 
say, 'We made a mistake.'" ^ The forecast was one which 
had much plausibility in the forties when IVIarx's life atti- 
tude was being shaped, and even in the fifties and sixties 
when English blue-books were revealing the inhuman con- 
ditions which unregulated competition had produced in 
many occupations, and providing Marx with the am- 
munition which he was to use with such explosive effect. 
Fortunately the conditions revealed were transitory 
and exceptional in their extremity, and the generaliza- 
tions rashly based on these data have failed to stand the 
test of time. Marx underestimated both the power of 
the awakened conscience of the nation, expressing itself in 
legislation, and of the organized self-help of trade union- 
ism, to lift the workingman above the level of isolated 
and unaided weakness. And for disregard of these and 
other vital factors his theory on this point must now be re- 
legated to the economic lumber-room, whither so many 
once- vaunted doctrines, orthodox and heterodox alike, 
have preceded it. 

^ Eduard David, cited in Ensor, Modeni 'iocialism, p. 165. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 155 

(c) Concentration and Centralization 

Marx*s next attempt to divine from the immanent laws 
of capitalist production the future trend of industry has 
met with better fortune. His forecast of the concentration 
of industry is the portion of his theory which has come 
nearest to being confirmed by time. The doctrine was 
already a familiar one in French socialist circles : Conside- 
rant and Pecqueur had both declared that the superiority 
of large-scale production would make industrial feudalism 
the only alternative to collective ownership, and Louis 
Blanc had found in "cheap prices" — the last word in de- 
fense of competition — the means by which the great cap- 
italist would eat up the small. ^ Marx does not develop the 
theory in any detail: he rests the forecast on the same 
grounds as his forerunners. "The battle of competition is 
fought by cheapening of commodities. The cheapness of 
commodities depends, ceteris paribus, on the productiveness 
of labor, and this again on the scale of production. There- 
fore the larger capitals beat the smaller." ^ In manufact- 
uring and agriculture alike the small producer is doomed. 
The dominating position of the large-scale establish- 
ment and the tendency to combination among competing 
or complementing establishments are among the most con- 
spicuous aspects of present-day industrial development. 
Where the product or service is staple and uniform, the 
process reducible to routine, the pace and quality of work 
subject to ready inspection and test, the way is open for 
the large-scale industry, and its superiority in the diminu- 
tion of fixed charges per unit of product, the opportunity 
to secure high-priced but efiicient management, improved 
processes, and up-to-date machinery, the greater range of 
division of labor and the fitting of capacity to task, the 
utilization of by-products, the wider and easier credit, 
the economies in purchasing supplies and selling output, 
1 VOrganisation du Travail, Paris, 1839, chap. iii. ' Capital, i, p. 394. 



156 SOCIALISM 

enable it to outstrip its smaller rivals. So we find, in the 
United States, the capital investment of the average agri- 
cultural implement factory grow from $2674 in 1850 to 
$220,571 in 1900, of the iron and steel plant from $46,716 
to $858,371, of *.he ship-yard from $5638 to $69,321, and 
of the meat-packing establishment from $18,824 to $168,- 
172, accompanied in some cases by a decrease in the num- 
ber of plants.^ The possible advantages of combination are 
equally obvious, whether the aim is the suppression of com- 
petition, the realization of the economies of single control, 
or the integration of all the stages from extraction of the 
raw material to the delivery of the most highly finished 
product. So in extractive industry we see the United States' 
anthracite coal -supply controlled by a handful of compa- 
nies; in transportation, railroad after railroad welded into 
gigantic Harriman or Hill or Canadian-Pacific systems, or 
huge fleets brought under a single International Mercan- 
tile Marine pennant; in manufacturing, the output of great 
staples, iron and steel, petroleum, tobacco, controlled by 
a few great trusts or cartels ; in banking, particularly in Eng- 
land and Germany, amalgamation proceeding apace, and 
even in retail trade the chains of Lipton or United Cigar 
Company stores presenting the same tendency. 

Marx must be given frank credit for his insight into the 
tendency of the time. Yet even here qualification must be , 
made, so serious as to deprive the doctrine of any conclusive . 
force. The extent to which concentration has advanced \/ 
should not blind us to the fact that in some spheres it has 
not been manifest at all, and that even where it is at work 
it has not proceeded with the rapidity or the crushing final- 
ity Marx predicted. 

The steady persistence of home industry, it should first 

be observed, is not really a contradiction of the Marxian 

prophecy. It has no independent strength; it is merely a 

parasite on the capitalist system. It survives by its weak* 

* Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, vii, p. Ixxii. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 157 

nesses; so long as home workers in sweated trades are 
unorganized and over-numerous, so long as by their em- 
ployment the entrepreneur may save outlay for plant and 
superintendence and escape the restrictions of factory 
legislation, so long will home work continue to maintain 
its equivocal existence and form the worst plague-spot in 
modern industry. 

In industrial establishments proper, small-scale produc- 
tion, while not holding its own relatively, yet shows a vital- 
ity and persistence which give it promise of long lease of 
life. In catering to the increasing demands created by the 
expansion and refinement of wants, in auxiliary services 
attached to the production of gross staples, in all those lines 
where personal judgment and artistic skill still count, the 
small producer will continue to find a place, and an import- 
ant one. It needs only a glance at the city about us or at 
the pages of the census reports to realize that, in spite of the 
dramatic emergence of the gigantic industry, the great bulk 
of the industry of the western world is still in the hands of 
small and medium producers.^ In Prussia over five millions 

^ Classification op Industrial Establishments in Germany 

Number Per cent 

1882 1895 1882 1895 

Small-scale industries 1-5 persons 2,175,857 1,989,572 95.8 92.8 

Medium-scale " 6-50 " 85,001 139,459 3.8 6.5 

Large-scale " over 60 " 9,481 17,941 0.4 0.9 

Persona engaged Per cent 

1882 1895 1882 1895 

Small-scale industries 3,270,404 3,191,125 55.1 89.9 

Medium-scale " 1,109,H8 1,902,049 18.6 23.8 

Large-scale " 1,554,131 2,907,329 26.3 36.3 

— Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, N. F. Bd. 119, Berlin, 18D9. 

Classification of Industrial and Commercial Establishments in 

Prussia 

Establishments Numbers Persons Employed 

1895 1007 1895 1907 

Quite small (1 person only) 1,029,954 955.707 1,029,954 955,707 

Small (2-5 persons) 593,884 767,200 1,638,205 2,038,238 

Medium (6-50 " ) 108,800 154,330 1,390,745 2,809,164 

Great (51-500 " ) 10,127 17,287 1,217,085 2,095,065 

Very Great (501-1000 persons) 380 602 261,507 424,589 

Giant (1000 persons & over) 191 371 338,585 710,25 3 

1,743,336 1,895,497 5,876,083 8,332,912 

— Cited from Bernstein, Evolutionary Socinli.tm, p. 57. 

For France, compare Botirgiiin, Systemcs socialistes et revolution ScO' 

nomique, p. 392; and for England, Bernstein, p. 55. 



158 SOCIALISM 

of the eight and a third milHons in industry and commerce 
are in establishments employing fifty or under; in France, 
in industry alone, three and three quarter millions out of 
five and a half; while even in Great Britain the proportions 
have been estimated at five and a half millions in medium 
and small plants and three and a half to four millions in the 
large. In all these cases the numbers engaged in the smaller 
and medium establishments together show a decided in- 
crease over previous years. It is evident that while the 
great industry is absorbing an increasing share of the na- 
tions' labor and capital, at the same time the small indus- 
try, far from being doomed to extinction, is extending its 
borders every year. 

Nor is concentration by combination more assuredly in- 
1/ evitable than the crushing-out of the small industry. The 
economies of combination have been greatly overrated, 
and include many savings as accessible to large independ- 
ent concerns as to a trust. ^ It yet remains to be proved 
that a trust, without any monopoly of natural resources or 
of railway favors or of legislative influence, can crush out 
competition. The ordinary water-logged merger, formed to 
sell stocks rather than goods, cannot meet the competition 
of up-to-date rivals established by fresh capital. 

In retail trade the case for the man of small means is still 
more favorable than in production. Here convenience in 
time and place and the importance of personal unremitting 
attention bulk so large that in most countries the small re- 
tailer is not only holding his own but increasing faster than 
the population.* Deductions must be made for the cases 
where the independence is illusory, where the small estab- 
lishment is a tied house for example,' — a circumstance 
which does not any the more involve the psychological atti- 
tude of the proletarian, however; — but, these aside, it is 

* Cf. C. J. Bullock, Quarierly Jovmal of Economics, xv, pp. 167 seq. 

* Cf. Sotnbart, Vereinfur sozial Politik, 1899. 

' Cf. Kautsky, Das Erfurier Programm, preface, and pp. 16-31; Vander* 
velde, op. cit., p. 42. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 159 

clear that commerce shows no signs of the exclusive dom- 
ination of the large establishment. 

But it is in agriculture that the socialist prophecies have 
been most completely falsified by time. The small farm 
dominates the situation to-day beyond question. Marx's . 
condemnation of small-scale farming as "worthless and 
utterly irrational" and Engels' "absolute certainty that 
capitalist production will out-distance the powerless, an- 
tiquated small farm as a railway train a wheelbarrow," 
have proved most unlucky forecasts.^ The enthusiastic 
visions of the application of capitalist methods to farming, 
of bonanza farms, electric plows, and platoons of trained 
and specialized workers, cease to win credence. The world 
over, the verdict is practically the same; here the small farm 
gains slightly at the expense of the large, there it loses 
slightly,^ but, as a frank American socialist says, "One 
thing is certain, if any such changes are taking place in 
either direction, they are of such extreme slowness as to par- 
take of the nature of those astronomical calamities which 

1 Engels, "Die Bauemfrage in Frankreich und Deutschland," Neue 
Zeit, 1895, i, 303; David, Socialismus und Landwirtschaft, i, p. 687. 





2 GERMANY 










Number 


OP Farms 






1882 




1895 






Number 


Per cent 


Number 


Per cent 


Under 2 hectares 


3,061,831 


58.03 


3,236,367 


58.23 


2-20 


1,908,012 


36.16 


2,015,122 


86.25 


20-100 


281,510 


5.34 


281,767 


5.07 


Over 100 


24,991 


0.47 


25,061 


0.45 




5,276,344 


100.00 


6,558,317 


100.00 






Akea 






1882 




1895 






Hectares 


Per cent 


Hectares 


Per cent 


Under 2 hectares 


1,825,938 


5.73 


1,808,444 


5.56 


2-20 


12,348,601 


38.75 


13,027,859 


40.01 


20-100 


9,908,170 


31.09 


9,869,837 


80.35 


Over 100 


7,786,263 


24.43 


7,831,801 


24.08 




31,868,972 


100.00 


32,517,941 


100.00 



— Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, N. F. Bd. 112, p. 11. 



160 



SOCIALISM 



are discussed by mathematicians rather than of those social 
transformations that urge men to revolution." ^ 





FRANCE 








Number 


OF Farms 






1882 


1892 






Number Per cent 


Number 


Per cent 


Under 1 hectare 


2,168,000 38.22 


2,235,000 


39.21 


1-10 


2,635,000 46.46 


2,618,000 


45.90 


10-40 


727,000 12.81 


711,000 


12.47 


Over 40 


142,000 2.51 


139,000 


2.42 




5,762,000 100.00 


5,703,000 


100.00 




Area 






1882 


1892 






Hectares Per cent 


Hectares 


Per cent 


Under 1 hectare 


1,083,800 2.19 


1,327,300 


2.68 


1-10 


11,366,300 22.92 


11,244,700 


22.77 


10-40 


14,845,600 29.93 


14,313,400 


28.99 


Over 40 


22,296,100 44.96 


22,493,400 


45.56 




49,581,100 100.00 


49,378,800 


100.00 



— Statistique agricole de la France de 1892, pp. 363 et seq. 
Cited in Bourguin, op. cit., pp. 324-325. 



Under 10 acres 
10-50 
50-100 
100-500 " 
500-1000 " 
Over 1000 " 



UNITED STATES 

1880 Per cent 1890 

139,241 3.5 150,194 

1,036,323 25.8 1,168,327 

1,032,810 25.8 1,121,485 

1,695,983 42.3 2,008.694 

75,972 1.9 84,395 

28,578 0^ 31,546 

4,008,907 100.0 4,564,641 



Per cent 1900 Per cent 



3.3 

25.6 

24.6 

44.0 

1.8 

0.7 

100.0 



268,446 
1,664,797 
1,366,167 
2,290,424 

102,547 
47,276 




Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, v, p. xlv. 



GREAT BRITAIN 
"In 1895 the small holdings of from 1 acre up to 50, although two 
thirds of the whole number, covered only 15 per cent of the cultivated 
area. Large farms, exceeding 300 acres in extent, occupied 27 per cent 
of that area. The medium-sized holdings, lying between 50 and 300 
acres, proved to be the most characteristic form, . . . embracing some 
58 per cent of the whole. The changes since 1895 ... are not sufficient 
materially to disturb these ratios. The numbers both in the smallest and 
largest sized groups are somewhat fewer, while a small but distinct de- 
velopment of holdings occurs in the group of medium-sized areas." — 
Report of Committee on Small Holdings: 1906, Cd. 3277, p. 3; see also 
App. XVIII, XIX. 

1 Simons, The American Farmer, pp. 101-102. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 161 

Marx's unlucky prophecy arose from an overhasty gen- 
eralization, an uncritical assumption on the part of a man 
more familiar with the reading-room of the British Museum 
than with the farm-yard, that agriculture must show the 
same all-decisive economies of large production as manu- 
facturing industry. The part taken by the peasantry in 
crushing the French revolts of '48 made the socialist eager 
to see this barrier to success swept away; the preoccupa- 
tion with England, the one country where on the surface 
there appeared to be a parallel between industrial and agri- 
cultural evolution, and the country which on a priori 
grounds was held to point the way to the development in 
store for the rest of the world, gave ground for sweeping 
generalizations. Urban viewpoint, tactical exigencies, Eng- 
lish data, all made for the same conclusion. Closer study 
of realities has demonstrated that the advantages of large 
production are realized to far slighter degree in farming, 
and are offset by greater disadvantages than is the case 
in manufacturing.^ Machinery counts for much less, owing 
to the seasonal and discontinuous character of the opera- 
tions and the lack of uniformity in the material : of the ma- 
chinery available the most efficient is usually either within 
the means of the small farmer, or, as in the case of traveling 
threshers, may be hired for the short time needed. It is 
science rather than machinery that has caused the revolu- 
tion in farming — improvements in rotation of crops, in 
application of fertilizers, in combatrng pests, etc. ; and these 
advances are nowadays, largely by cooperative and state 
action, brought within the small farmer's reach. Nor do 
the economies of the division of labor bulk large; the oper- 
ations of agriculture are as a rule not contemporaneous as 
in manufacturing, but successive, so that there is not the 
same inducement to specialization. And as for marketing, 
the point where the small artisan is most helpless in com- 

' Cf . especially David, Socialismus und Landivirtschaft. i. Die Betriebs- 
frage. 



162 SOCL\LISM 

petition with the large factory, the small farmer is aided 
by the staple character of his product and to some extent 
by cooperative buying and selling. On the other hand, 
the small farmer has positive advantages in the superior 
stimulus of self-interest, and in the utilization of the fam- 
ily's labor, especially in those odds and ends of "chores" 
which make the difference between profit and loss. 

Faced by the undeniable fact that the small farmer 
sturdily declines to be annihilated, some socialist writers 
have sought proof of indirect concentration in the increase 
of tenancy and mortgages.^ It is undeniable that tenancy 
is rapidly increasing in the United States, ^ for example, but 
it is equally clear, from an examination of the figures, that 
this movement does not represent a transformation of own- 
ers into tenants — for the owners are increasing, and in- 
creasing faster than the farm population — but an eleva- 
tion of agricultural laborers into tenants.^ Similarly mort- 
gages — less a bugbear in the Western States than a score 
of years ago — must be regarded not so much as signs of 
the omnivorousness of the money-lending octopus as indi- 
cations of "a struggle of the former tenant to purchase an 
equity in his holding,"^ or a means of expansion and devel- 
opment. 

Simons, in his study of the American situation, follows 
Kautsky's lead in placing this elusive concentration still 
elsewhere. The industrial process, he asserts, must be 

' Cf. Ghent, Benevolent Feudalism, p. 21. ^ 

* Number operated by Per cent operated by 
Total No. Cash Share Cash Share 
of farms Owners Tenants Tenants Owners Ten. Ten 

1880 4,008,907 2,984,306 322,357 702,244 74.5 8 17 5 
1890 4,564,641 3,269,728 454,659 840,254 71.6 10 18 4 
1900 5,739,657 3,713,371 752,920 1,273,366 64.7 13.1 22.2 
— Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, v, p. 689. 
» Cf. Twelfth Census of the United States, v, Ixxvii, C. F. Emerick, " Agri- 
cultural Discontent in the United States," Political Science Quarterly, 
xi, p. 603; and Simons, op. cit., p. 114. ' • 

* Bogart, " Farm Ownership in the United States," Journal of Political 
Economy, xvi, p. 201. Cf. Bourguin, p. 213. 



THE MARXIAN AN.VLYSIS 163 

looked on as an organic whole; an article is not produced 
until in the hands of the consumer; accordingly, "railroads 
and steamships, with elevators and cold-storage plants 
and packing-houses, are as much a part of the necessary 
equipment for agricultural production as wagons, teams, 
granaries, and barns"; ^ concentration is proceeding in y, 
these auxiliary processes, which have the whip-hand of the// 
farmer, so, virtually, concentration is proceeding in agri- 
culture. This ingenious confusion of dependence and 
interdependence gives a very far-fetched and untenable 
interpretation to the concept of concentration; as to the 
actual relations of these interdependent factors, Simons's 
pessimism overlooks the possibility — and the reality — 
of political intervention in control of railroad or elevator 
rates, without any abandonment of individual ownership. 
The stubborn persistence of the independent farmer, 
his inconsiderate reluctance to play the vanishing role 
prescribed for him in the socialist drama, the Downfall of 
Competition, is a reality which no gloss or subtle reinter- 
pretation can conceal. On this rock all comprehensive 
socialist schemes must split. The farmer and Hegelian 
dialectics follow different paths. His pioneer individualism 
may mellow with the passing of the frontier and the spread 
of city and country intercourse, but there is not the slight- 
est indication in America, any more than in France or 
Germany, that the will-o'-the-wisp lures of the cooperative 
commonwealth are wiling him from the certainties of indi- 
vidual ownership.^ 

Closely interwoven wilji the theory of the concentration 
of industry is the contention as to the coming centraliza- 
tiQn of wealth and the disa?)pearance of the middle class. 

^ Simons, op. cii., p. 119. 

* "The great body of the rural population are immune [from "social- 
istic disaffecti(3n"]. . . . The advocates of the new creed have made lit- 
tle headway among the rural classes of Europe, whether peasant farmers 
or farm laborers." — Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise, pp. 349-350. 



164 SOCIALISM 

More and more, Marx contends, the class struggle is sim- 
plified into a contest between two great camps, proletariat 
and bourgeoisie. "The lower strata of the middle class," 
he declares in the Communist Manifesto, "the small 
tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen gener- 
ally, the handicraftmen and peasants, all these sink gradu- 
ally into the proletariat." ^ The mortality in the warfare 
of competition is not confined to the lower middle classes; 
the upper strata are reduced to a handful. Capitalist ex- 
propriates capitalist, wealth is gradually centralized in 
the hands of a few magnates. When the day of revolution 
dawns the vast coordinated masses of the proletariat will 
stand face to face with a mere remnant of plutocrats. ^ 

The fallacy in the contention that the small capitalist, 
whether in agriculture, manufacture, or commerce, was 
doomed to disappear, has already been noted. Equally se- 
rious for the Marxian prophecy is the failure to recognize 
that even within the fields where concentration has pro- 
ceeded apace, concentration of industry is not synonym- 
ous with centralization of wealth. Marx does not clearly 
distinguish the two conceptions, and his haziness has de- 
scended to most of his disciples. ^ There is, it is apparent 

1 Page 24. 

2 . . . "Concentration of capitals already formed, destruction of their 

individual independence, expropriation of capitalist by capitalist, trans- 
formation of many small into few large capitals. This process differs from 
the former in this, that it only presupposes a change in the distribution 
of capital already to hand, and functioning. . . . This is centralization 
proper, as distinct from accumulation and concentration. . . . That 
which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for him- 
self, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is 
accomplished by the immanent laws of capitalist production itself, by 
the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. . . . The 
constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital." — Capital, i. 
pp. 395, 487. 

' Cf. the Erfurt Programme: "The economic development of capitalist 
society leads inevitably to the downfall of small-scale industry. . . . 
The means of production become the monopoly of a relatively small 
number of capitalists and great landowners." 



THE MAKXLVN ANALYSIS 165 

an reflection, no necessary connection between changes in 
the form and size of the industrial unit best suited for 
production and changes in the property relations corre- 
sponding. The utmost centralization of wealth is possible 
without change in the size of the ifnits of production or 
in the technical processes adopted; a recognition of this 
fact is implied in the unsuccessful attempt of the socialist 
to show that while the small farm continues to dominate 
agriculture the real control has passed to the mortgage- 
holder. On the other hand, extreme concentration of in- 
dustry is possible without centralization of ownership. 
Socialism itself professes to offer a system in which the 
utmost possible concentration and integration of industry 
is to be compatible with at least an approach to equality in 
individual wealth. The existing social order has evolved 
a more practical instrument for securing concentration 
without centralization, an instrument which anticipates 
and renders unnecessary the collectivist solution — 
namely, the joint-stock company. The division of owner- 
ship which the joint-stock company involves makes it 
possible for the man of small means to acquire an interest 
in concerns which otherwise, on account of their magni- 
tude and their inaccessibility, would be hopelessly out of 
reach. 

Nor are we dealing with mere possibilities. In France, 
the shares of the Bank of France were held, in 1908, by 
31,249 shareholders, of whom 10,381 held one share, 27,784 
less than eleven shares, 3100 from eleven to fifty, 252 
from fifty to one hundred, and 113 over one hundred; ^ the 
shareholders in the six great railways recently numbered 
over 700,000, and holders of government annuities over 
two million.- The attempt at control of the English retail 
provision trade by the Lipton stores was instanced above 
as one form of concentration, yet the number of share- 

* Monetary Times, xliii, no. 2. 

* Neymarck, Jour. Royal Stat. Soc, li, p. 540. 



166 SOCIALISM 

holders in this company fully ten years ago was 74,262.' 
In the United States the number of additional holders who 
have bought into the leading railway and industrial cor- 
porations, at the bargain prices recently prevailing, is 
currently estimated at 200,000. The arrangements made 
by important industrial corporations, as for example the 
United States Steel and the Westinghouse Company, to 
enable their employees to purchase shares on favorable 
terms, indicate a still further extension of the tendency. 
The benefits of the movement are not unqualified. The 
owner of a few shares of stock in a huge railroad or indus- 
trial corporation is practically voiceless in its management, 
and the extent to which the common gains may be sluiced 
into private channels is only too apparent in everyday 
financial record. With the progress of publicity and of 
stricter company law, however, these drawbacks are in 
great part being removed. It is sufficient to emphasize 
again that the extension of the joint-stock company has 
made centralization of wealth by no means a necessary 
corollary of concentration of industry. 



(d) Crises 

The goal of Marx's analysis, it has been pointed out, 
was to show that by its own immanent laws capitalism was 
preparing at once its own downfall and the advent of 
socialism. Of outstanding importance in this pronounce- 
ment as to the coming bankruptcy of capitalism is the 
theory of crises. It is not altogether clear what amount 
of significance is attached to crises in the Marxian system, 
whether they are to be looked on merely as indications of the 
inability of the bourgeoisie to rule the Frankenstein they 
have created, or whether they have a causal force, resulting 
in the growing disorganization of industry and the disap- 

* Bernstein, op. cit., p. 43. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 167 

I>earance of capitalism after the last, worst spasm. ^ At 
all events, the crisis presents in the most acute and cul- 
minating form, Engels declares, the contradictions which 
mark the existing order and in the dialectical scheme of 
things insure its downfall. Put in terms of thesis, antithe- 
sis, and synthesis, the evolution of industrial and property 
relations runs as follows: in the days of handicraft, indi- 
vidual means of production corresponded to individual 
ownership of the product; to-day, production is cooperat- 
ive, interdependent, socialized, but the product is appro- 
priated by the individual capitalist. To-morrow the solu- 
tion is effected; to socialized production there is added 
socialized appropriation and division of the product. 
Meantime the contradiction between socialized produc- 
tion and individual appropriation exists. It is reflected in 
the antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie. It 
represents itself, with the extension in range and intensity 
of competition, as the contradiction between the organ- 
ization of production in the individual workshop and the 
anarchy of production in society generally. It is, however, 
in the crisis that this contradiction is manifested in its 
clearest and most explosive form: here the mode of pro- 
duction breaks out in revolt against the mode of exchange, 
the property relation. Engels follows his analysis by a 
vivid bit of description: "The whole industrial and com- 
mercial world ... is thrown out of joint once every ten 
years. Commerce is at a standstill, the markets are glut- 
ted, products accumulate, as multitudinous as they are 
unsaleable, hard cash disappears, credit vanishes, factories 

* "The economic and industrial development is going on with such 
rapidity that a crisis may occur within a comparatively short time. The 
Congress, therefore, impresses upon the proletariat of all classes the 
imperative necessity of learning, as class-conscious citizens, how to admin- 
ister the business of their respective countries for their common good." — 
Resolution of the International Socialist Congress, 1896, quoted in 
Bernstein, op. cit., p. 80. Cf. however, Kautsky, Bernstein und das soz. 
dem. Programm, p. 42. 



168 SOCIALISM 

are closed, the mass of the workers are in want of the 
means of subsistence, because they have produced too 
much of the means of subsistence; bankruptcy follows upon 
bankruptcy, execution upon execution. The stagnation 
lasts for years; productive forces and products are wasted 
and destroyed wholesale, until the accumulated mass of 
commodities finally filters ofiF, more or less depreciated in 
value, until production and exchange gradually begin to 
move again. Little by little the pace quickens. It be- 
comes a trot. The industrial trot breaks into a canter, 
the canter in turn grows into the headlong gallop of a 
perfect steeplechase of industry, commercial credit and 
speculation, which finally, after breakneck leaps, ends 
where it began — in the ditch of a crisis. And so over and 
over." ^ 

In the writings of Marx and Engels the main theory as 
to the cause of crises is that they are phenomena of over- 
production due to the diminished consuming power of the 
masses. The anarchy that prevails in production is put 
forward as a secondary cause. The over-production, or 
under-consumption, theory of crises already expounded 
by Sismondi was adopted by Engels afterwards in various 
writings of the early forties, though, the latter contended, 
there was an essential distinction between the two ver- 

* Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 64-65. Cf. the Communist 
Manifesto, p. 21: "For many a decade past the history of industry and 
commerce is but the history of revolt of modern productive forces against 
modern productive conditions, against the property relations that are 
the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. It is 
enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return 
put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire 
bourgeois society, . . . paving the way for more extensive and more 
destructive crises." The same hectic view of history in general which 
makes Marx and Engels see in "all past history the history of class 
struggles" and makes their philosophy of history an explanation of the 
cause of "all social changes and political revolutions," here crops out in 
the conception that the history of commerce and industry is synonymous 
with the record of the catastrophes in commerce and industry. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 169 

^ions.^ In the Communist Manifesto the same explanation 
is offered: "In these crises there breaks out an epidemic 
that in all earlier epochs would have seemed an absurdity 
— the epidemic of over-production." ^ In the work from 
which the passage quoted in the preceding paragraph is 
taken, Engels finds the immediate source of the evil in the 
fact that "the extension of the markets cannot keep pace 
with the extension of production." ^ More explicitly Marx 
identifies lack of markets with workers' poverty: "The 
consuming power of the laborers is handicapped partly by 
the laws of wages, partly by the fact that it can be exerted 
only so long as the laborers can be employed at a profit 
for the capitalist class. The last cause of all real crises 
always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of 
the masses as compared to the tendency of capitalist pro- 
duction to develop the productive forces in such a way 
that only the absolute power of consumption of the entire 
society would be their limit." ^ The conquest of new 
markets abroad may afford temporary relief, but the evil 
day is only postponed. 

The theory that crises are due to the inability of the 
consuming power, or rather the purchasing power, of the 
masses to keep pace with the increase of the productive 
powers of society, assumes that condition of steadily in- 
creasing poverty which we have seen is contrary to the 
realities of social development. So long as the wants of 
men are capable of infinite expansion, there can be no 
question of the ability of society as a whole to increase 
its desires to equal whatever tremendous increase of pro- 
ducts and services may be effected ; in the quantitative as 
aside from the value aspect, over-production is clearly 

^ Landmarks of Scientific Socialism {Anti-Duhring), translated by 
Lewis, p. 237. 

* Communist Manifesto, p. 21. 

' Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 64. 

* Capital, iii, p. 568. 



170 SOCIALISM 

impossible, whatever may be said as to mis-production, 
the direction of the productive activities into the wrong 
channels. Nor, still looking at society as a whole, can there 
be any possibility of over-production in the sense that the 
sum total of its values offered on the demand side is less 
than the total values on the supply side, since these totals 
must balance. Grant, further, the assumption that the 
purchasing power of one section of society, the wage-earn- 
ing classes, is decreasing relatively to that of the other 
classes of society. Why should such a decrease necessitate 
a breakdown? Could it not be offset by an increase in the 
expenditure of the rich on conspicuous waste, or in the 
amount of production goods? Such developments might 
be morally reprehensible, might be futile and contradict- 
ory perversions of means into ends, but they would not 
be economically unworkable — the only aspect Marx cares 
to consider,^ Trouble would come not in the change of 
the relative proportion of mass and of class purchasing 
power, but in lack of equilibrium between the demand and 
the supply for each kind of consumption or production 
goods. It is clear also, as Marx recognized later, that there 
is something wrong with a theory which finds in decreased 
purchasing power of the masses an explanation of crises, 
which uniformly occur after periods of expansion and pro- 
sperity during which wages have been at their highest. 

^ Cf. in Tugan-Baranowsky, op. cit., pp. 209 scq., a detailed examina- 
tion of the possibility of a constantly increasing proportion of production 
goods. Tugan-Baranowsky 's contention, p. 210, that the tendency to a 
falling rate of profit is considered in the Marxian system an independent 
source of the break-up of capitalism, does not seem tenable; the falling rate 
of profit acts only indirectly by stimulating production and accelerating 
the pace at which it outruns consumption. Equally secondary is the 
significance Marx attaches to the extension of credit. Cf. Capital, iii, p. 
522. Marx has the less room for denying the outlet through extension 
of production goods, since elsewhere he refers to the constant necessity of 
scrapping machinery, long before physically worn out, to keep pace with 
the progress of invention, as an important fact and itself the material 
basis of commercial crises. — Capital, ii, p. 21 1. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 171 

Engels' emphasis on the anarchical character of capital- 
ist production as the cause of crises has more plausibility, 
recognizing as it does that the problem is one of mis-pvo- 
duction, whereas Marx's theory is simply a variant of the 
hoary fallacy of ot'er-production. His prophecy of increas- 
ing intensity of crises has, however, not been borne out. 
Many forces have worked for the attenuation rather than 
the aggravation of crises since Marx's days — the better 
organization of credit; the growing fluidity and inter- 
nationalism of capital and of commerce, which make the 
whole world feel the shock but prevent its being fatal in 
any one spot; the greater reserve of accumulated wealth, 
lessening the importance of temporary depression; the 
regulation of production by trust and cartel and the better 
distribution of effort caused by trade-union opposition to 
over-time.^ In confirmation may be cited Tugan-Baranow- 
sky's interesting demonstration that the recent crises in 
Great Britain have been followed by practically none of 
those fluctuations in the number of marriages, in the 
death-rate, in pauperism, and in criminality which char- 
acterized the crises of the second and third quarters of the 
nineteenth century.^ The much-abused capitalist system 
is showing great vitality, and seems in as little danger of 
death from crisis-convulsions as from capitalist apoplexy 
or proletariat anemia. 

(e) Summary 

The Marxian analysis of the existing industrial system 
has now been passed in brief review. The outstanding 
feature of Marx's doctrine, the distinction which has made 
it the intellectual backbone of socialism the world over, is 
his conception of capitalism as the necessary forerunner, 
the unwilling servant, of socialism. Unlike the Utopian, 

* Cf. Bourgtiin, op. cit., p. 326. 

* Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte der Handelskrisen in England. 



172 SOCIALISM 

he makes no charge that men have been wasting time on 
the wrong track, makes no appeal to their reason or their 
sense of justice to attempt at once to shunt the car of state 
back on the right track. Capitahsm itself is harnessed in 
socialism's service. "What the bourgeoisie produces above 
all is its own grave-diggers." ^ It is this frank, if provisional, 
acceptance of the existing order which keeps him for no 
little distance in theoretical harmony with the classical 
economists. He accepts in large part their statement of the 
laws that regulate competitive economy — their laws of 
value, their theory of falling profit, their doctrine of ground 
rent. He even anticipates, like the good Manchesterian 
he is, no serious interference with these sacred laws, so 
long as capitalism lasts. Then, however, comes the parting 
of the ways, and Marx reveals to his quondam companions 
the inevitable and unwelcome outcome of those very laws 
and tendencies. 

Every tenet in the closely-jointed creed has its place 
in the demonstration of this inevitable development 
toward socialism. The materialist conception of historj'-, 
we have seen, reveals the present epoch, equally with past 
ages, as dominated by a class struggle, between exploiting 
bourgeoisie and exploited proletariat. The theories of 
value and surplus value lay bare the source of this ex- 
ploitation. The increasing misery of the proletariat, 
brought to sore straits by the pressure of the industrial 
reserve army, is finally to rouse it to revolt against the 
capitalist system. Their training within the ranks of 
capitalism itself, capitalism which has disciplined, united, 
organized, and educated them for its own greater gain, 
gives their revolt assurance of success. The centralization 
of wealth in the hands of a comparatively few magnates 
also serves to make resistance difficult and appropriation 
easy. The ever-recurring crises proclaim and hasten the 
bankruptcy of competition. The concentration of industry, 
* Communist Manifesto, p. 32. 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 173 

the socialization of i)roduction, make it possible for a 
collectivist commonwealth to operate the means of pro- 
duction once they are seized. All things work together 
for good. "That which is now to be expropriated," Marx 
declares in a classic passage, "is no longer the laborer 
working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many 
laborers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action 
of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by 
the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills 
many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this 
expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an 
ever-extending scale, the cooperative form of the labor 
process, the conscious technical application of science, the 
methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of 
the instruments of labor into instruments of labor only 
usable in common, the economizing of all means of produc- 
tion by their use as the means of production of combined, 
socialized labor, the entanglement of all peoples in the 
net of the world-market, and with this, the international 
character of the capitalist regime. Along with the con- 
stantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, 
who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process 
of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, 
slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows 
the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing 
in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by th^ very 
mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. 
The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode 
of production, which has sprung up and flourished along 
with and under it. Centralization of the means of pro- 
duction and socialization of labor at last reach a point 
where they become incompatible with their capitalist 
integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell 
of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators 
are expropriated." ^ 

* Capital, i, p. 487. 



174 SOCIALISM 

The sweep of vision, the loftiness of tone, the seer's 
assurance of this passage make it the fitting cUmax of 
Marx's exposition. Weak as his doctrine has been shown 
to be in many of its essential points, taken as a whole it is 
an achievement of the first order. To his task of analyzing 
and forecasting the development of capitalist industry 
Marx brought an acute and powerful logic, wide reading, 
unfathomable powers of vituperation, a keen insight, 
especially for the weaknesses of human nature, unflagging 
energy and enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. To him the world 
in general owes a relentless exposure of the seamy side of 
our boasted civilization, a helpful if exaggerated — per- 
haps helpful because exaggerated — recognition of the 
importance of the economic factor in history, a protest 
against the shallow optimism and barren traditional 
deductive reasoning that marked much of the current 
economic theory, and an attempt to get close grip on 
reality and seize the import of the main forces and the 
broader currents of industrial development. The debt of 
socialists for the creed and the rallying cry he gave them, 
for his assurance that the stars in their courses were fight- 
ing for them, is of a magnitude that even the devotion of 
millions of adherents can scarcely repay. 

Yet to-day many a socialist is coming to recognize that 
the carefully constructed system is crumbling. With much 
that was enduring, much that was transitory went to its 
building. Marx was steeped in prejudice, too deeply in- 
fected by the revolutionary spirit of his surroundings in 
the forties, to be able to take a calm and impartial survey. 
His Hegelian training hindered as much as it helped his 
attempt to read the past and forecast the future. It gave 
his thinking an a priori and teleological cast which pre- 
vented his making an objective cause-and-effect study of 
tendencies. The conception of development as a dialectic 
process led to e^xaggeration of the role of class struggle and 
to attempts to deduce the future trend of industry not so 



THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS 175 

much from social fact as from a philosopher's formula. 
The whole contention of the immanent necessity of cap- 
italist development along the lines he forecast was thus 
metaphysical rather than scientific in its origin. His data, 
the records of English factory development in the middle of 
the century, were too narrow and special for sound general- 
ization. And even his tools, the current economic concepts 
which formed the necessary counters of discussion, failed 
him at times. It is an odd instance of the revenge of 
environment on the most rebellious of its children that this 
iconoclast who railed at the economic man himself has 
given us a view of history which is merely the economic 
man writ large, multiplied into a class ; that this critic who 
rarely had a good word for the English economists picks 
up their discarded labor-value theories and falling rate 
of profit forecasts ; that this scoffer at the a priori dogma- 
tism of bourgeois theorists is most prone to abstractions 
and uncorrected hypotheses ; that this scorner of individu- 
alism and laissez-faire is himself tinctured with individual- 
ism to the point of anarchy in his view of the industrial 
organization of the future, and is led astray in his pro- 
phesying by his failure to recognize the extent to which 
governmental and trade-union action would affect con- 
clusions based on the assumption of laissez-faire. In spite 
of himself, Marx was the last of the classical economists. 

The conclusive evidence of the futility of a doctrine is 
its abandonment or reinterpretation by its quondam up- 
holders under stress of contact with reality. This evidence 
the socialists of the revisionist brand have been heaping 
up in abundance the past few years. In Germany itself 
many of the most progressive of the socialist leaders have 
been brought, some by sobering contact with political 
responsibility, some by candid facing of theoretical dif- 
ficulties, and all by the unconscious drift of time, to aban- 
don !!aany of the most distinctive of the master's doctrines.^ 

* Cf. Veblen, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xxi, pp. 299 seq.'. 



176 SOCIALISM 

The philosophical foundations have shifted: the teleology 
and the dialectics of Hegelianism have more or less uncon- 
sciously been replaced by Darwinian norms of thinking, 
marked by "no trend, no final term, no consummation; 
the sequence is controlled by nothing but the vis a tergo 
of brute causation, and is essentially mechanical." ^ The 
tendency is to hark back to the idealism of the Utopians, 
to base the appeal of socialism once more on eternal just- 
ice and the rights of man, to raise the cry of "Back to 
Kant" and deduce the collectivist commonwealth from 
the needs of human personality. The materialistic con- 
ception of history is qualified into colorlessness, the class 
struggle more and more retired into the background. The 
value and surplus value theories are abandoned or their 
importance minimized, the doctrine of increasing misery 
repudiated, the inevitable march of concentration and 
centralization confronted by unconforming fact. Slowly 
but surely the Marxian theory is disintegrating. 

Kampffmeyer, Changes in the Theory and Tactics oj German Social Demo- 
cracy; Boudin, Theoretical Systein of Karl Marx; and bibliographical 
appendix to this volume, for a survey of the revisionist literature. 
* Veblen, op. cit., p. 304. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 

When we turn from analysis of capitalism to panacea pro- 
posed, we find in latter-day as contrasted with Utopian 
socialism at once a greater uniformity in the general char- 
acter of the socialist organization which is to replace the 
existing order, and a much greater unwillingness to at- 
tempt presentation in detail. The two tendencies are 
not unconnected ; the comparative absence of detail brings 
the widespread agreement on essentials into prominence. 
Practically all the important socialist organizations of 
Europe and America look for ward to the collective owner- 
ship a nd operation of the means of production and ex-^ 
chan ge, and the allotment of reward by mittrtri+y — Private 
ownership is retained so far as consumption goods are con- 
cerned, but vanishes for the factory, the mine, and per- 
haps the soil. Competition as the motor force of industry 
gives way to unified control and social zeal. The era of* 
"all-round harmonious perfection" dawns. 

When, however, we proceed to look into what this pro- 
posal entails, to inquire what solution the socialist has to 
offer for the obvious and seemingly fatal difficulties which 
the collectivist ideal involves, a most unwonted hush and 
reticence falls on many quarters of the socialist camp. The 
wealth of detail which characterizes the proposals of 
Fourier or Cabet vanishes in the Marxian or Fabian treat- 
ment. The stress which the Utopian laid on constructive 
effort is shifted in the one case to critical analysis — the 
main work of the great protagonist of scientific socialism 
is called not Socialism but Capital — and in the other to 
the study of tactics. This reluctance of the socialist lead- 
ers, particularly those of the generation now passing away. 



178 SOCIALISM 

to grapple with the administrative problems their own 
proposals involve, has several roots. It is in part an 
implication of the theoretical position of the modern 
socialist, in a minor degree it is a matter of temperament, 
and to varying extent it is a dictate of party strategy. 

It is in the first place an outcome of the changed view 
of the forces that mould society and the manner in 
which radical industrial transformations come about. The 
kingdom to come is not to be an artificial structure built 
in accordance with the careful plans and specifications 
\/ of social architects, but an organic growth, the outcome of 
social forces now at work. In the more extreme form 
this position approaches fatalism: capitalism is doomed, 
socialism is its inevitable heir; it is unnecessary, when the 
stars in their courses are fighting, to waste words painting 
the desirability of the socialist organization or seeking to 
show that it is practicable. "What is proved to be inevit- 
able is proved not only to be possible but to be the only 
possible outcome." ^ This fatalist attitude, however, is 
neither sound nor consistent. It is not sound, since it rests 
on an analysis of the trend of industrial development which 
has not stood the test of time, an analysis marked by 
keenness and insight in many of its details, but perverted 
by cramping preconceptions and by an underestimate of 
the competitive system's powers of adjustment and adap- 
tation. And were this trend inevitable, it would be so only 
because of the conscious cooperation and striving of a 
majority convinced of the feasibility of the new industrial 
system. Nor is the attitude consistent. There has been 
in Marxism from the beginning a contradictory strain, a 
recognition of the necessity of working through the con- 
scious will of man and not merely relying on the blind 
working of unconscious industrial forces.* Every act of 

* Kautsky, Das Erfurter Programm, 8th edition, p. 137. 
' On this dualism in Marx, cf. Goldscheid, Verelendungs- oder Melio- 
rationstkeorie ? 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 179 

propaganda, every attempt to spread the good tidings 
among the miconverted, witnesses a beUef that the king- 
dom can come only when men have been persuaded of the 
better part. 

The change in theoretical standpoint results in a less ex- 
treme attitude when the reluctance to discuss the problems 
of a socialist commonwealth is defended on the ground 
that it is impossible to forecast the future in detail.^ This 
position is a strong one: Marx's scornful refusal "to write 
the kitchen recipes of the future" reveals an incomparably 
sounder historic sense than the Utopian readiness to map 
out the minutest details of the future Icaria or Atlantis. 
Yet it is by no means a satisfactory answer. There is here 
no question of meticulous details, no impossible demand 
for a rigid and carefully scheduled forecast of the exact 
structure of the cooperative commonwealth on April 1, 
2500 A. D., no request for a prophecy of the ultimate out- 
come and far-reaching reactions of socialist innovations. 
It is merely a legitimate and absolutely necessary demand 
for a frank facing of the obvious difficulties and inconsist- 
encies inherent in the collectivist proposal. The point is 
of primary importance. It is not enough that the socialist 
can point to grievous ills in existing society. That such 
evils exist only the blind and callous can deny. Want and 
wretchedness, misery and injustice and crime are hard 
realities, appalling in their extent and persistence. Here 
there is no dispute. The divergence comes with the rem- 
edy proposed. The socialist agitator, logically or illogic- 
ally determined to help out providence, alias the inevit- 

^ "To each epoch its task; do not let us presume to regulate the future; 
let us be content to occupy ourselves with the present." — Deville, Priii- 
cipes Socialistes, p. 39. 

"We know as little as our opponents how matters will work out in a 
future society, and were we to paint it never so finely, our children's 
children would not turn to our prophesyings, but would act as tlie time 
and circumstance dictated." — Calwer, Einfiihrung in den Socialismus, 
p. 68. 



180 SOCIALISM 

able laws of capitalist development, seeking to win men 
to his cause, must convince them that the new order will 
work, and will work better than the old, that it does not 
threaten evils intolerably worse than those we know. It 
is a question of what organization, what social instrument, 
will best subserve the interests of society, a question which 
must be decided every time a change in our social or polit- 
ical structure is proposed, decided fallibly, decided with a 
human inability to foresee the complications and unlooked- 
for reactions the future holds in store, but decided with 
the best light we have. Kautsky would be quite right in 
refusing to comply with what he considers the parallel 
demand "to write the history of the next war." ^ But, to 
take a closer parallel, he would be quite wrong had he 
been leading a campaign for a complete discarding of the 
present instruments of warfare, demanding the scrapping 
of Dreadnoughts in favor of aeroplanes or triremes, or the 
substitution of vril or bows and arrows for gunpowder, 
and yet declined to discuss their comparative utility in 
the more probable contingencies of warfare. 

It is evident that there are other explanations for the 
socialist emphasis on destructive criticism rather than on 
constructive planning. Marx's negative temperament led 
him to underrate the difficulties of administration, while 
his revolutionary sympathies involved an overrating of the 
power of the proletariat to extemporize their solution. 
The collapse of the Commune uprising in 1871 partly dis- 
illusioned Marx and Engels on this point.^ With their 

1 Op. cit, p. 140. 

^ Preface to Communist Manifesto, 1888, and Civil War in France, 
1871, p. 15. Cf. Wells, A^ew Worlds for Old, pp. 2'27-232. "Marx's life 
was the life of a recluse from affairs, an invalid's life; a large part of it 
was spent round and about the British Museum reading-room, and his 
conception of socialism and the social process has at once the spacious 
vistas given by the historical habit and the abstract quality which comes 
with a divorce from practical experience of human government. ... As 
a consequence Marx, and still more the early 'Marxists' were, and are, 
negligent of the necessities of government and crude in their notions *f 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 181 

successors the attitude has been a matter of tactics more 
than of temperament or principle. It is easiest to unite on 
a negation. Let the word go forth to all the discontented, 
to every one who nurses a grievance against society, that 
all misery and oppression are to be abolished and a state 
of "all-round harmonious perfection" established. Forth- 
with each may give reins to his imagination, construct his 
private heaven, may see his ill redressed or his merits 
recognized, himself or his pet crotchet exalted, without 
any of the confusing doubts a definite programme would 
occasion. Socialism offers every man a blank check on 
happiness, to fill out at his own sweet will, untroubled by 
fears as to the extent of the funds. 

There are, however, some signposts available to aid in 
the inquiry into the working of a collectivist state. Scat- 
tered here and there through the works of Marx and Engels 
themselves there are brief pronouncements on specific 
points. On other details a dim and fitful light has been 
shed by the debates and votes of party congresses. The 
leader of the German socialist party, August Bebel, years 
ago presented a more comprehensive programme in a widely 
circulated volume.^ Less authoritative, to be accepted 
only in so far as it logically deduces the necessary implica- 
tions of the collectivist demand, is the work of Schiiffle,^ 
written by an opponent, but so impartial as to have won 

class action. . . . The constructive part of the Marxist programme was 
too slight. It has no psychology. Contrasted, indeed, with the splendid 
destructive criticisms that preceded it, it seems indeed trivial. It dia- 
gnoses a disease admirably and then suggests rather an incantation than 
a remedy. . . . It faces that Future, utters the word 'Democracy,' and 
veils its eyes. ... So long as this mystic faith in the crowd, this vague 
emotional, uncritical way of evading the immense difficulties of organizing 
just government and a collective will prevails, so long must the socialist 
project remain not simply an impracticable, but in an illiterate, badly 
organized community, even a dangerous suggestion. I as a socialist am 
not blind to these possibilities." 

* Women under Socialism, 1883, translated from the 33d German edi- 
tion by De Leon, 1904, 

* The Quintessence of Socialism, 1875, translated by Bosanquet. 



182 SOCIALISM 

widespread socialist sanction, and not without important 
influence on the shaping of socialist ideals. At all times 
the Bellamys and the Gronlunds have rushed in where 
Marx and Engels feared to tread.^ And particularly of 
late years the recognition of the inconsistency of the pro- 
gramme of barren silence, or the sobering reflections in- 
duced t^ an approach to political power, have led many 
of the ablest of Continental and American socialists ^ to 
endeavor to offer a solution of some of the outstanding 
problems. A more optimistic note as to the possibility 
even of forecasting the future is struck: the suggestions 
that are made, declares Simons, "are in no way parts of a 
hard and fast scheme ... to be followed regardless of 
consequences or the course of economic development. But 
the ability of interpretation which enabled the socialist 
to foretell the disappearance of the competitive system 
from the time of its birth, entitles him to speak with more 
than ordinary authority concerning the future." ^ The fact 
that the majority of these writers belong to the reformist 
group results, as will be noted later, in almost as numerous 
deflections from the Marxian standard in this field of or- 
ganization as in the fields of analysis or tactics. 
/ The first problem that faces the socialist — how catch 
<J the hare — is primarily a question ofJact.ifi^ but its solu- ! 
tion largely determines the character and extent of the 
difficulties facing the collectivist commonwealth at the 
outset. Is the capitalist to be expropriated without in- 

1 Bellamy, Looking Backward, 1887; Gronlund, The Co-operative Com- 
monwealth, 1886. 

2 Cf. Jaures, "Organisation socialiste," in Rev\ie Socialiste, 1895-96; 
Renard, "Regime socialiste." in Revue Socialiste, 1897-98; in book form, 
1903; Atlanticus, Ein Blick in den Zukunftstaat, 1898; Vandervelde, 
Collectivism and Industrial Revolution, translated by Kerr, 1901; Simons, 
American Farmer, 1902; Kautsky. Social Revolution, 1902, translated by 
A. M. and May Simons; Anton Menger, Neue Staatslehre, 1902; Spargo, 
Socialism, 1906; Wells, New Worlds for OW, 1908; B\\\qa\t, Socialism in 
Theory and Practice, 1909. 

» Op. cit.. 1906 edition, p. 205. 



THE MODERN SOCIiVLIST IDEAL 183 

demnity, or to be offered compenscation? The earlier hot- 
blooded demand for the expropriation of the robber rich 
without one jot of payment is now heard more rarely in 
the socialist camp. This attitude was consistent with the 
catastrophic view of social evolution, the view that the 
revolution would be "an affair of twenty-four lively hours, 
with Individualism in full swing on Monday morning, a 
tidal wave of the insurgent proletariat on Monday after- 
noon, and Socialism in complete working order on Tues- 
day." ^ But in these post-Darwinian days this naive expec- 
*>ation is untenable. With the growing admission that the 
new order must be established by degrees, it is seen that it 
would be impossible to expropriate certain capitalists and 
leave the rest in undisturbed possession. Further, forcible 
expropriation without indemnity would be impossible; 
even were the great majority of the manufacturing pro- 
letariat won over to the policy, they could scarcely hope 
to overcome the determined resistance of the millions of 
farmers and the urban middle class. ^ 

If the other horn of the dilemma is then unanimously 
chosen, and the capitalists bought out at one hundred cents 
on the dollar, how is the condition of the poorer classes one 

1 G. Bernard Shaw, Fabian Essays (American edition), p. 166. 

* Cf. the leading Belgian socialist: "Evidently if this expropriation is 
not to meet with insurmountable difficulties, it must needs be that 
capitalistic concentration should have arrived at its completion; that 
personal property should exist only in memory; that the immense ma- 
jority of the citizens shall be composed of proletarians who have 'nothing 
to lose but their chains.' But, even on this supposition, the realization 
of which seems at least distant, there is no doubt that of all forms of 
social liquidation, expropriation without indemnity, with the resistance, 
the troubles, the bloody disturbances which it would not fail to produce, 
would be in the end the most costly. 'We do not at all consider,' wrote 
Engels in 1894, 'the indemnification of the proprietors as an impossi- 
bility, whatever may be the circumstances. How many times has not 
Karl Marx expressed to me the opinion that if we could buy up the whole 
crowd it would really be the cheapest way of relieving ourselves of them."* 
— Vandervelde, Collectivism and Industrial Revolution, translated by 
Kerr, p. 155. 



184 SOCIALISM 

jot improved? There will be heaped up an immense debt, 
a perpetual mortgage on the collective industry; rent and 
interest will still remain a first charge, still extract "sur- 
plus labor" from the workers. Even if collectivist man- 
agement were to prove every whit as efficient as capital- 
istic, the surplus for division among the workers would 
not be increased beyond that available to-day. Indeed, 
it would be diminished. To-day a great part of the revenue 
drawn in the shape of rent and interest is at once recap- 
italized, and makes possible the maintenance and exten- 
sion of industry. A socialist regime could not permit the 
paid-off capitalists to utilize their dividends in this manner, 
increasing their grip on industry ; they would be compelled 
to spend it in an orgy of consumption. All provision for 
capital extension would therefore have to come out of 
what was left of the national dividend. The last state 
would be worse than the first. 

Recognizing this, various socialists have proposed, once 
the capital has been appropriated, to put on the screws 
by imposing income, property, and inheritance taxes which 
will eventually wipe out all obligations against the state. ^ 
In other words, they would imitate the humanitarian 
youngster who thoughtfully cuts off the cat's tail an inch 
at a time, to save it pain. Doubtless there are, within the 
existing order, great possibilities of extension of such taxes 
for the furtherance of social reform. Possibly our withers 
would be unwrung if the socialistic state confiscated the 
multimillionaire's top hundred million by a progressive 
tax. But the fortunes of the multimillionaires, spectacular 
as they are and politically dangerous as they are, form 
but a small proportion of the total wealth. So soon as the 
tax came to threaten the confiscation of the small income 
as well as the great, the matter would again become one 
of relative physical force. ^ 

' Cf. Fabian Essays, p. 176; Kautsky, Social Revolvtion, p. 121. 

' " The whole tendency of civilization and of free institutions is to an 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 185 

On the threshold lies the question of th e unit of organ- 
ization. That the scope of the complex and large-scale 
industrial system to which the socialist commonwealth 
would fall heir must be state-wide, most modern socialists 
are agreed. That it must be state-directed is a position 
that has been reached with more difficulty. In fact, the 
founders of the Marxian faith looked forward with assur- 
ance to the time when the state would disappear. For the 
state, Engels declared, is merely an instrument employed 
by the exploiting classes, slave-owners, feudal lords, and 
bourgeoisie, which have dominated at various times, to 
keep the exploited classes in subjection. It follows that 
when, with the coming of socialism, classes die out and 
class wars cease, the state will have lost its reason for 
existence. "State interference in social relations becomes, 
in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies 
out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the 
administration of things, and by the conduct of the pro- 
cesses of production. The state is not 'abolished.' It dies 
out." ^ Confusing the abuses of the institution with its 
essence, they looked forward with a trustful optimism 
inherited from their Utopian forerunners to the time when 
voluntary organizations cooperating harmoniously would 
serve all men's needs. In fact there was little to choose 
between their ideal and that of the closely allied thinkers 
of the Bakunin type from whom the anarchists of to-day 

ever-increasing volume of production and to an increasingly wide diffu- 
sion of profit. And therein lies the essential stability of modern stales. 
There are millions of persons who would certainly lose by anything like a 
general overturn, and they are everywhere the strongest and best organ- 
ized millions. And I have no hesitation in saying that any violent move- 
ment would infallibly encounter an overwhelming resistance, and that 
any movement which was inspired by mere class prejudice, or by a desire 
to gain a selfish advantage, would encounter from the selfish power of the 
'haves' an effective resistance which would bring it to sterility and to 
destruction." — Winston Spencer Churchill, Liberalism and the Social 
Problem, p. 79. 

* Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 76-77. Cf. Bebel, op. cit., p. 237. 



186 SOCIALISM 

trace their descent.^ To revolutionists in exile the state 
and the police were anathema. 

To-day, with the tactics adopted reacting on the ideal 
proposed, participation in politics bringing reconcilement 
to the state, and the policy of accepting installments of 
betterment frequently transmuting neutrality into enthu- 
siastic fervor, the state is frankly accepted as the unit and 
main agency of administration in the future. Lassalle 
and Bismarck have conquered Marx. It may be that the 
anarchist with his proposal of voluntary collectivism on 
a territorial basis, or the syndicalist with his vision of the 
industry of the future in the control of autonomous trade 
unions, or the occasional socialist who calls for the land for 
the laborer and the mine for the miner — and, adds the 
ironic Fabian, the school for the school-teacher and the 
sewer for the sewer-man^ — is the truer son of Marx. The 
official heirs, however, read the last will and testament 
otherwise. It is unnecessary to dwell on the pious attempts 
of wandering disciples to maintain verbal consistency with 
the fathers by tabooing the word state in favor of some 
other name for the same thing — "the central administra- 
tion, as will be noted, not a Government with a power to 
rule, but an executive college of administrative func- 
tions."^ According to the revised version, the state does 
not die out. 

The acceptance of state control does not necessarily 
involve direct state operation throughout the whole field 
of industry. The modern socialist rightly insists on the 

* Fabbri, "Die historische und sachliche Zusaramenhange zwischen 
Marxismus und Anarchismus," in Archiv fiir Sozialwissenschaft, 26, 
p. 559. Cf. Marx: "The existence of the state and the existence of slavery 
are inseparable," Paris Vorwarts, 1844, cited inAdler, Grundlagen der 
Marxschen Kritik, p. 245. 

^ Sidney Webb, Socialism True and False, Fabian Tract no. 51, p. 13. 

* Bebel, op. cit., p. 276. Hillquit comes to the franker conclusion: 
"Since little or nothing can be gained by inventing a new term, we shall 
hereafter designate the proposed organized socialist society as the Social- 
ist State." — Socialism in Theory and Practice, p. 100. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 187 

possibility of wide activity by local governmental units, 
by town and city, county and province. The Utopian 
vision of the small commune as the unit of organization 
finds realization in a saner form in the enterprise of the 
municipality of to-day, and to-morrow, the socialist holds, 
will see a further development of the tendency. So far as 
the production of services and goods entirely for local 
consumption is concerned, a wide degree of autonomy 
would no doubt be possible, and to this extent the burdens 
imposed on, and by, the central authorities would be 
lessened. So far, however, as the production of goods for 
state- wide consumption is concerned, local independence 
is impossible. If the haphazardness and anarchy which 
the socialist declares characterize the competitive system 
are to be abolished, the kinds and quantities of wares 
produced and the manner of their disposition must be 
rigidly controlled by central authority. 

In quite recent years, whether frightened by the shadow 
of their own bureauciatic state or insensibly abandoning 
their attitude of implacable hostility to the existing order, 
many prominent socialists have proposed an even greater 
range of variety in organization. Side by side with the 
national and local undertakings there are to be found 
cooperatives for production. This position is expressed 
most authoritatively by Kautsky, in a passage which has 
been quoted or adapted by many socialists, particularly^ of 
reformist leanings.^ The Interpretation of this striking 

1 " In this, as in every other relation, the greatest diversity and pos- 
sibilitv of change will rule. Nothing is more false than to represent the 
socialist society as a simple, rigid mechanism whose wheels when once 
set in motion run on continuously in the same manner. 

"The most manifold forms of property 'in the means of production — 
national, municipal, cooperatives of consumption and production, and 
private, can exist beside each other in a socialist society — the most 
diverse forms of industrial organization, bureaucratic, trades union, 
cooperative, and individual; the most diverse forms of the remuneration 
of labor, fixed wages, time-wages, piece-wages, participation in the eco- 
nomies in raw material, machinery, etc., participation in the results of 



188 SOCIALISM 

passage is open to ambiguity. It is explicitly clear that 
it offers a picture of the socialist commonwealth, not of 
a transitional compromise. If it is to be taken in conjunc- 
tion with previous declarations in the same work to the 
effect that the proletariat must regulate in every estab- 
lishment the height of production, the allotment of labor 
force and of capital goods, and the disposal of the pro- 
duct,^ the freedom and flexibility claimed are utter shams. 
Central control in these essential respects would mean that 
initiative would be so cramped, the scope for independent 
enterprise so restricted, the stimulus to greater effort so 
feeble, that the boasted diversity would be an empty form. 
If, on the other hand, as the passage by itself would imply, 
and as some of Kautsky's fellow socialists have interpreted 

intensive labor; the most diverse forms of the circulation of products, 
like contract by purchase from the warehouses of the state, from muni- 
cipaHties, from cooperatives of production, from producers themselves, 
etc., etc. The same manifold character of economic mechanism that 
exists to-day is possible in socialistic society. Only the hunting and the 
hunted, the struggling and resisting, the annihilating and being anni- 
hilated of the present competitive struggle are excluded and therewith 
the contrast between exploiter and exploited." — Kautsky, The Social 
Revolution, pp. 166-67. 

Cf. Spargo, op. cit., chap. 8, "Outlines of the Socialist State," for a 
somewhat similar forecast which called forth the following typical criti- 
cism: "The book is one of the most notable contributions to the literature 
of socialism. . . . But it is extremely doubtful if socialists generally will 
accept with enthusiasm the strange mixture of private production, free 
voluntary cooperation, and state ownership proposed." — Christian Social- 
ist, iv, no. 9, p. 2. 

' "The proletariat can only accomplish this regulation of the circula- 
tion of products by the abolition of private property in industry, and it 
not only can do this but it must do it, if the process of production is to 
proceed under its direction and its regime is to be permanent. It must 
fix the height of production of each individual! social productive plant 
according to the basis calculated upon the existing productive powers 
(laborers and means of production) and of the existing needs, and see 
to it that each productive plant has not only the necessary laborers 
but also the necessary means of production and that the necessary pro- 
ducts are delivered to the customers." — Kautsky, The Social Revolu- 
tion, p. 150. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 189 

it, a real independence on the part of these various organ* 
izations is to be granted, if the individual, whether in isola- 
tion or in voluntary cooperation, is to be permitted to 
work for private profit, to compete with other producers, 
employ assistants, to dispose of his wares without outside 
interference, this development offers striking evidence of 
the intellectual bankruptcy of socialism on the side of 
organization. The chief defender of the faith, high priest 
of the most (nearly) orthodox wing of the German Social 
Democracy, is led to abandon his negative attitude and 
come to close grip with the difficulties of socialist adminis- 
tration. It is remarkable testimony to the vitality and 
practicability of the existing system that he is forced by 
this study so to trim and prune and hedge that his picture 
of the socialist commonwealth turns out to be only an 
idealization of our competitive society, merely a shifting 
of emphasis, a change in the proportion of individual and 
social enterprise. 

It is tacitly admitted that the socialist programme of the 
collective ownership and operation of all the instruments 
of production would not work. To obviate this difficulty 
and that, recourse is had to one institution after another 
of the much berated existing order, until finally Herr 
Kautsky emerges with a society differing from the present 
only by the extension of government control to a few more 
industries. The society thus outlined is infinitely more 
defensible than the rigid collectivist state, but it gains in 
practicability precisely in the measure in which it discards 
the exclusively collectivist ideal and approaches the present 
organization. Plausibility is won at the expense of con- 
sistency. The denouncer of private property is forced to 
admit its sway in a large part of the industrial field. The 
declaimer against the exploitation of the workman by 
the employer permits the extraction of surplus value 
to survive. The fulminator against the insufferable 
evils of anarchical competition permits the seven devils 



MO SOCIALISM 

of competition still to roam unchained in certain large 
fields. 

The attempt to run with the competitive hares and 
hunt with the collectivist hounds is of course logically 
indefensible. The alternatives must be faced frankly. If 
private companies, cooperative societies, municipalities 
or autonomous trade unions are permitted to engage com- 
petitively in production, without any central regulation, we 
have the "anarchy" which the socialist asserts of the pre- 
sent order. If central regulation is imposed, there is an end 
of freedom and initiative among the units. A socialoid 
state where "the struggling and resisting, the annihilating 
and being annihilated of the present competitive struggle" 
are excluded and harmony is imposed by external regula- 
tion, and where at the same time the flexibility and freedom 
and progress which can come only from this struggling and 
resisting are to be incorporated, is a hybrid impossible of 
realization, a contradiction in terms. 
f Accepting the state, therefore, as the unit of organiza- 
tion, and assuming that when the party programmes call 
for the collective ownership and operation of the means of 
production they mean what they say, we may turn to the 
problems of the organization of production — the selec- 
tion of the administration, the allotment of work, and the 
regulation of output. 

In the first place, who are to be the stewards of King 
Proletariat, and how are they to be chosen ? In spite of 
Saint-Simon's and Engels' oracular utterance that the gov- 
ernment of persons will be replaced by the administration 
of things, the new regime will necessarily be a government 
of persons by persons, more or less for (certain) persons. 
<Ji must be radically democratic, all modern socialists are 
agreed; here and there a socialist recognizing that demo- 
cracy is not incompatible with the keeping of some mon- 
archical trappings.^ But when it comes to translating 

* Cf. Menger, Neue Staatslehre, book iii, chap. 3. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 191 

abstract democracy into concrete institutions, evasion or 
divergence is met with. By those who face the problem 
three main solutions are offered — the extension of th^ _^ 
pvjstJTii^ jitRtR mRc ^infryj with all departments of industry 
in charge of political heads, as in the case of the post-office 
at present; the diffe re ntiation of the p ol itical a nd the^in- 
dustrial state^with the,£QntroLx>tjiidiistry in the hands 
of expert commissiops; and autopomons ndministrntinn. by__- 

trade unions, select ing^ their own chi efs. 

The choice of system would in great measure depend on 
the method in which the socialist commonwealth came into 
being. Coming as a result of the gradual extension of state 
and municipal ownership to one industry after another, 
the first alternative would be the most probable solution. 
The prospect is one which should warm the cockles of a 
Tammany grafter's heart. Here would be a prize worth 
the striving for, the control not of a narrow section of men's 
activities but of the whole wide field. Incalculable inter- 
ests would be at stake. And we are asked to believe that 
in the strife there would be no factional struggle, no wire- 
pulling, no dickering, no ward heelers, no slates. We are 
offered assurances, childish and bland, that in this ideal 
state only the fittest will be chosen to oSice,^ and that 
there will be no machine, the government being merely S^ 
a committee of the workers to conduct their joint affairs.* ' 
To appreciate these idyllic forecasts to the full, one needs 

1 Bebel, op. di., p. 276: "Whether the central administration shall be 
chosen directly by popular vote or appointed by the local administrations 
is immaterial. These questions will not then have the importance they 
have to-day; the question is then no longer one of filling posts that bestow 
special honor, or that vest the incumbent with greater power and influ- 
ence, or that yield larger incomes: it is then a question of filling positions 
of trust, for which the fittest, whether male or female, are taken." 

* Simons, o-p. cii., p. 177: "This does not mean that there would be an 
enormous industrial and political machine in the hands of a majority 
of the voters. . . . The government . . . would be simply a commit- 
tee of the workers to do for the whole body of the workers the things in 
which they were all interested." 



192 SOCIALISM 

to have followed closely some of the innumerable faction 
fights within the ranks of the socialist parties of to-day, 
or to have watched a socialist junta jam a nomination or 
a platform plank through a convention, despite the pro- 
tests of obscure members of the rank and file; and this 
when the prize at stake was not office but the empty honor 
of being defeated for office. 

The contention that the universal adoption of civil- 
service reforms would cure all ills fails to meet the issue. 
Such a measure might do much to keep the civil service 
out of politics, in the sense that appointment to its ranks 
would not be made the reward of party activity; it could 
do little to keep politics out of the civil service, once 
practically every worker was a government worker. 
Political activity would then take the form, not of domina- 
tion of the government by an outside organization, but 
of an internal contest between different groups and oc- 
cupations seeking to promote their collective interest by 
gaining control of the administration. Under socialism 
civil-service reform becomes utterly meaningless and in- 
applicable. To prohibit civil servants from political 
activity when everybody is a civil servant, is to dis- 
franchise the nation. "WTien everybody is an office- 
holder," declares Jean Jaures, "there will be no office- 
holders." There is a glint of truth in this paradox of the 
brilliant leader of the French socialist movement, so far * 
as it implies that in the future the lines of division would 
not run between a specialized bureaucracy and the mass 
of officeless citizens. Yet the fact remains that the lines 
would continue to be drawn, the struggle merely being 
transferred within the ranks of the service. If every citizen 
were an officeholder, in the hands of the officeholders 
alone would rest the power to determine, by vote and 
combination and pressure, the conditions of their employ- 
ment. 

That administrators so chosen would be the tools of 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 193 

faction is inevitable. That they would have neither the 
expert training nor the permanent tenure required for 
efficient administration of complicated industrial depart-, 
ments is only too probable. The weakness of such a social- 
ist administration, however, is not merely personal. It 
would fail chiefly because the unwieldy centralization in- 
volved would be fatal to progress and efficiency. Bureau- 
cratic routine would paralyze initiative. Regularitj^ of \ J^ 
procedure rather than efficiency of production would be A^ 
the criterion applied. The red flag would be shredded into 

red tape.^ _- — 

A,. Recognizing that ineMciency and factional struggle 
would be inseparable from political administration, some 
socialists propose universal government by commission.-*) 
Vandervelde, for example, would substitute for the re- 
sponsible but incompetent politician the competent but 
irresponsible expert. Citing with approval the declaration 
of a Belgian business men's memorial that certain abuses 
in the railway tariff "will last so long as the railroads are 
operated by the state and directed by a politician, who 

1 A frank socialist recognition of this danger is found in Vandervelde, 
op. cit., p. 131: "In the administrative like the political order, the char- 
acteristic of the present [state] system is centralization pushed to the 
extreme. ... In the Belgian state railways for example — and as much 
might be said for other countries — an engineer in charge of a shop can- 
not modify in any way the processes or the system of operation in the 
service which is directly entrusted to him, without the authorization of 
tis chief, who in his turn has to ask the authorization of the management, 
which again, in most cases, has to ask the approval of the council of 
administration. In short, every initiative has to pierce three zones, in 
which it has much chance of meeting obstacles in routine, ignorance, or 
hostility. If it starts from a man of much will-power, it will overcome 
these obstacles, but as men of this type form the exception, the initiative 
quickly finds itself rebuffed, and oftener than not it ends by becoming 
null. On the other hand, this triple overlapping, which is required by the 
organization itself — with the aim of bringing everything back to the 
centre — results in the suppression of responsibility. . . . The great 
question is to know whether the authorizations, following the hierarchical 
ladder, have been asked and obtained. The cost of production is not 
considered." 



194 SOCIALISM 

will always be a mark for solicitation and pressure of every 
kind," he urges the universal adoption of the Swiss and 
Australian government railway methods of control by 
independent commissions and also of the decentralized 
administration found in large private corporations.^ The 
ideal of the English Fabians is essentially the same. The 
proposal is not without its strong features. A bureau- 
cratic hierarchy — or a decentralized bureaucracy, if one 
can conceive of bureaucracy being decentralized — might 
avert some of the worst evils of political pressure. It would 
do so, however, only at the sacrifice of political and indus- 
•^ trial freedom. Absence of pressure entails absence of re- 
sponsibility. It is more than probable that the failure of 
direct political administration of the huge, complex indus- 
trial machine would drive the socialist state into adopting 
commission rule. Herein, in fact, lies one of the most seri- 
ous dangers the growth of socialism would entail; by heap- 
ing on central and local governments burdens too great 
for democratic institutions to cope with, it leads to their 
/ breakdown and the substitution of an irresponsible bureau- 
^ cracy. The recourse to government by commission, to 
rule by Saint-Simonist benevolent and religious-minded 
despot or by Fabian well-oiled expert, involves a confession 
of democracy's failure. Governments by state-appointed 
commissions has to its credit some notable achievements. 
There is, however, need here for discrimination. For its 
success three^conditioiis appear to be indispensable. The 
/number of commissions should not be so great as to make 
impossible that constant and focused publicity which to- 
day tempers authority and remedies the evils of inertia 
and routine and cliqueism which sooner or later beset such 
bodies. /The commission succeeds best when its function is 
gathering and dispensing information or regulating private 
industry; it succeeds least when it endeavors itself to 

1 Vandervelde, Collectivism and Industrial Revolution, translated by 
Kerr, p. 130. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 195 

carry on complex administrative duties. 5^inally, commis- 
sions can be independent of party pressure only so long as 
their appointment is not the main function of the govern- 
ment, and therefore not the main issue on which elec- 
tions turn. Set up commissions in every sphere of activity, 
impose upon them the burdens of administration as well as 
of publicity or regulation, make them so important a factor 
in government that their choice will be the chief object of 
party rivalry, and if we escape from Prussianizing our 
free democracies it will only be by relapsing into the 
regime of faction and pull for which the commission is 
suggested as a remedy. 
-YjJ A third alternative is the election of the higher ofBcials 
in each industry by the workers directly concerned, rather 
than by the general electorate. This plan has been put 
forward sporadically for many years but has recently been 
given fresh momentum by the growth of syndicalism, the 
revolutionary European trade unionism which sees in the 
union or guild the cell of the future social organism. The 
advantage claimed for this solution, the kngsd£dgg.on_tlie 
part of the voters of the requirements of the office and the 
«;apaclties of the candidate, is not without force. The fatal 
flaW-IritHe plan is that_tEelYery^onditions which give this 
restricted electorate fuller knowledge of IKe situation, 
heighten their direct prersonar interest in the issue; the 
range of factional struggle would be narrowed but its 
intensity deepened. Gronlund's suggestion of escape from 
this dilemma by giving subordinates power to elect but 
superiors power to dismiss, the personage at the apex alone 
being liable to dismissal by the constituency which elects 
him,^ is more ingenious than convincing, with its na'ive 
expectation that the officials would be given power un- 
pledged and unfettered. Nor is provision satisfactorily 
made for the general coordinating and directing staff, 
which would not come within the field of any specific 
* Cooperative Commonwealth, chap. 8. 



196 SOCIALISM 

union. This device, like the other plans put forward, 
leaves unsolved the serious problem of how to combine 

, administrative efficiency and administrative responsibility. 

"^ It does not exorcise the politician. Competition, driven 
out of the economic door, flies in at the political window. 
The administration chosen, the secretariats organized, 
one of the chief problems to be faced would be to determine 
what should be produced, and in what quantities. For the 
bulk of commodities no especial difficulty should arise, 
particularly in the event of gradual and piecemeal estab- 
lishment of socialism. The demand for the great staples 
would be clearly audible and readily met. The danger 
here is twofold : that production would fall into a rut and 
that some articles would be tabooed by the prejudice of 
the majority. There would not be the same stimulus to 
variety which exists to-day when successful novelty spells 
fortune. Inertia, buttressed by short-sighted theories of 
economy based on the inability to recognize the necessity 
of a wide margin of experiment and failure for variation and 
progress, would tend to stereotype wares and processes. 
And with the instruments of production in its hands it 
would be easy for the state to repress all habits and tastes 
which seemed to the majority pernicious or useless, by 
simply not producing the goods in question. Beer might 
go — picture a socialist commonwealth without beer — 
and on beer might follow tobacco, or nerve-racking coffee, 
or corsets, or vaudeville, or prayer-books, as the majority 
swayed. The same tendency exists to-day, where, as in 
the case of alcoholic drinks, the evils of excess are serious 
and widely recognized, but under collectivism its applica- 
tion would be immensely simplified and extended.^ 

^ Renard proposes the division of wants into absolute and relative, 
the labor-force of society being directed in the first place to the production 
of the absolute minimum required and then to the production of such 
additional commodities as a majority vote of the citizens may add to the 
list. — Revue socialiste, xxvii, pp. 13 seq. Yet Renard is an eager cham- 
pion of individual liberty! 



THE MODERN SOCL\LIST IDEAL 197 

How much to produce is an even more difficult problem 
than what to produce. Under existing conditions the ad- 
justment between demand and supply is effected by price 
fluctuations, automatically warning the producers of 
approaching scarcity or superabundance and setting in 
motion counteracting forces. The adjustment is not 
effected without frequent friction and loss, but when the 
modern world-wide interdependent system of production 
and exchange is comprehensively surveyed, the marvel- 
ous flexibility and adequacy of the mechanism stand out 
in clear relief. The traditional socialist doctrine of labor- 
value has, however, made it appear essential to many 
collectivist schemers to forego this expedient, substituting 
for the existing currency, labor-notes corresponding to the 
work performed, and setting up statistical computation 
in place of price variation as the means of adjusting supply 
and demand. Even Marx and Engels, while condemning 
as Utopian proposals to establish labor-note experiments 
in the midst of a competitive economy, looked forward 
to their adoption under the collectivist regime.^ Bebel 
adheres to the same general arrangement,^ and Kautsky, 
while retaining a token money, deprives it of its function 
as a measure of value, and trusts for equilibrium to some 
undefined system of "social regulation." ^ The growing 
recognition of the unsoundness of the labor-value doctrine, 
and of the impossibility of determining and equating the 
labor applied in any specific instances has led other social - 

1 Cf. Bourguin, op. cit., pp. 116 seq., for convenient statement and 
criticism of the Marxian position. 

2 "There being no 'merchandise' in Socialist society, neither can there 
be money. . . . SociaHst society produces no article of merchandise — only 
articles of use and necessity, whose production requires a certain measure 
of social labor. The time on an average requisite for the production of 
an article is the only standard by which it is measured for social use. . . . 
Any voucher — a printed piece of paper, gold or tin — certifies to the 
time spent in work, and enables its possessor to exchange it for articles 
of various kinds." — Op. cit., pp. 291-292. 

* Social Revolution, p. 133. 



198 SOCIALISM 

ists to disregard all such devices as "Utopian and puerile," 
and to propose to retain money with its present functions.* 
Undoubtedly the latter proposal greatly simplifies the 
socialist task of adjusting supply and demand, as in fact 
every rejection of the specifically socialist proposals and 
the substitution of the tried and proven methods of the 
much-criticised existing system simplify it at the minor 
expense of consistency. The retention of money, however, 
brings new complications with the possibility involved of 
lending it at interest and thus perpetuating economic in- 
equality and economic "exploitation." Men would differ 
in their discount of the future then as now. Could the 
Red Pope succeed better than the Black in the attempt 
to repress the taking of usury? In the Russian mir there 
was no escape from the usurers, the "mir-eaters." As 
Engels clearly perceived, the retention of money with its 
full present-day functions leads fatally to the "resurrection 
of high finance" and the dominance of the community by 
new masters.^ Whether money be rejected or retained, 

' Cf. Hillquit, Socialism in Theory and Practice, pp. 118-119, where 
Kautsky is quoted in support of the retention of "money," without any 
intimation of the restricted scope Kautsky assigned to it. 

2 "Herr Diihring prides himself that in his community one can do 
with his money as he will. He cannot prevent one man, therefore, from 
saving money and another from not making his wages suflScient. . . . 
Nan old. The community does not know whence it comes. But now 
arises the chance for money, which has up to now played the role of a 
standard of work performed, to operate as real money. The opportunities 
and motives arise for saving money on the one hand and squandering it 
on the other. The needy borrows from the saver. The borrowed money 
taken by the community in payment for means of living becomes again 
what it is in present-day society, the social incarnation of human labor, 
the real measure of labor, the universal means of circulation. All the 
laws in the world are powerless against it, just as powerless as they are 
against the multiplication table or the chemical composition of water. 
And the saver of money is in a position to demand interest, so that specie 
functioning as money again becomes a breeder of interest. . . . Gold and 
silver remain in the world-market as world-money. . . . Then profit- 
hunters transform themselves into traders in the means of circulation, 
into bankers, into controllers of the means of production, though these 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 199 

foreign trade, it may be noted, particularly with unregen- 
erate competitive nations, adds greatly to the complex- 
ities to be faced, disturbing in the one case the nicely cal- 
culated adjustments of the statistician, and in the other 
increasing the opportunity of individual profit and social 
disintegration. 

The next question which would present itself would be 
the assignment of the working force to their posts. It is 
not merely the Stiefelwichsfrage that is involved, the ques- 
tion who is to black the boots of socialism, for it may be 
granted that with the (granted) advance of science the 
undesirable work would be made less repugnant. But it is 
forgotten by socialist apologists that this improvement 
is to be expected all along the line, and the relative unde- 
sirability would persist. To parallel Lassalle's contention, 
to the scavenger it will not matter that he is better equipped 
than the scavenger of a century before; it will matter that 
he is not so comfortably occupied as his neighbor who is 
a clerk in the central bureau of the Commonwealth Scav- 
enger Service. The naive hope that inferior men will 
recognize their inferiority and volunteer to do the lower 
tasks is a remnant of Utopian fantasy;^ were it true that 
the men of the western world are prone to think their 
fortunes equal to their deserts, the socialist movement 
would lose nine tenths of its recruits. 

may remain forever as the property of the economic and trading com- 
munities in name. Therewith the savers and profit-mongers who hav« 
been converted into bankers become the lords of the economic and trading 
communes." — Landmarks of Scientific Socialism (Anti-Duhring), trans- 
lated by Lewis, pp. 248-250. 

^ " We must not forget that there is a natural inequality of talent and 
of power. In any state of society most men will prefer to do the things 
they are best fitted for, the things they can do easiest and best, and the 
man who feels himself best fitted to be a hewer of wood or drawer of 
water will choose that rather than any loftier task. There is no reason 
at all to suppose that leaving the choice of occupation to the individ- 
ual would involve the slightest risk to society." — Spargo, Socialism, 
p. 233. 



200 ^ SOCIALISM 

Conceivably the problem might be solved soldierwist, 
the central authority ordering the new industrial recruits 
to the posts most sparsely manned. The Saint -Simonists 
looked forward to the day when a socialist amateur Pro- 
vidence, with insight to discern capacity, and power to 
provide opportunity, would insure unfailing adjustment, 
and socialists of some later schools which set more store 
on narrow efficiency and four-square regularity than on 
human liberty have echoed the proposal.^ Permanent 
acceptance of such benevolent despotism by any western 
people is plainly impossible. It may be true that at present 
liberty of choice is seriously restricted by economic in- 
equality, but such impersonal compulsion is endurable, and 
it may be hoped, with increasing thoroughness of training 
and increasing provision for open-eyed and intelligent 
selection of career and employment, curable, whereas 
definite personal compulsion stirs revolt. To their credit 
the great majority of modern socialists utterly reject this 
conscription solution as intolerable. The only recourse left 
is an equalization of advantages by shortened hours or 
heightened pay in the disagreeable occupations, until the 
desired adjustment is effected. Consideration of this pro- 
posal, however, involves the general question of the social- 
ist pay-sheet, the method of distribution of the national 
dividend. 

On no question is there more diversity in the socialist 
camp than on this subject of distribution. The party pro- 
grammes are silent. Among the authoritative individual 
writers there is no consensus of opinion. Although in 
criticism distribution bulks largest, in construction it is 
to-day least stressed. Reticence is sometimes defended on 
the plea that it is not a matter to be settled by considera- 

1 Cf. the spirit of Karl Pearson's remark, in Ethics of Free Thonght, p. 
324: "Socialists have to inculcate that spirit which would give offenders 
against the state short shrift and the nearest lamp-post. Every citizen 
must learn to say with Louis XIV, 'L'Etat, c'est moi.'" 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 201 

tions of justice, by "ideological pretenses of right"; but 
will depend on the productive relations existing.^ True, 
but if the system of distribution is a necessary consequence 
of the system of production, and the system of production 
which is to be established in place of the existing order 
has been revealed to the seers of socialism, there is all the 
less excuse for hesitancy in drawing this necessary deduc- 
tion. Nor can it be fairly maintained that considerations 
of justice are not involved. Had the adherents of socialism 
demonstrated its inevitability, it would be idle to ask this 
or any other question of remorseless fate. But since, in 
large part, at least, acceptance or rejection of socialism will 
depend on the conscious striving of mankind, it is necessary 
to consider what betterment it has to offer. The socialist 
cannot be permitted to denounce with voluble vigor the 
existing system of distribution, to base on its defects his 
strongest appeal to the discontented, and then himself to 
escape the test he has applied. 

To many socialists the old solution of equal sharing 
still appeals most strongly. It has the merit of simplicity; 
if it worked at all it would be easy to work. It is, in fact, 
largely from sheer despair of the other solutions that some 
have been driven to advocate it. "The impossibility," 
confesses a Fabian Essayist, "of estimating the separate 
value of each man's labor with any really valid result, the 
friction which would be provoked, the inevitable discon- 
tent, favoritism, and jobbery that would prevail — all 
these things will drive the Communal Council into the 

* Marx, On the Gotha Programme: translation in International Socialist 
Review, May, 1908, p. 650. Marx continues: "Under any and all circum- 
stances the distribution of the means of consumption is but the result of 
the distribution of the conditions of production itself. If the material 
conditions of production are the joint property of the workers themselves, 
just so there will result a distribution of the means of consumption differ- 
ent from that of the present day." Cf. Kautsky, Das Erfurter Programm, 
pp. 155 seq., where, however, no very definite deduction is drawn, other 
than a probable tendency toward equality. 



202 SOCIALISM 

right path, the equal remuneration of all workers." * The 
complete disregard of the standards of need and of merit 
stamps this standard as unsatisfactory whether from the 
standpoint of justice or from the standpoint of practica- 
bility. Neither in the Babeuvian form of an equal distri- 
bution of concrete consumption goods, a regimented and 
rationed uniformity, nor in the somewhat more flexible 
form of equal allotment of unspecialized purchasing power, 
could this method of reward adapt itself to the wide varia- 
tions of age and health and sex, or the more fluctuating 
but no less real differences of individual capacity and in- 
terest. Its adoption could weather the discontent of the 
abler members of the community only at the cost of a 
slackening of effort which would make the maintenance 
of efficiency in production impossible. 

The traditional communistic standard is, "to each 
according to his needs." This solution was advocated by 
the German socialist party in the platform adopted at 
Gotha in 1875, and while in later programmes the domin- 
ance of the Marxian over the Lassallian influence brought 
discreet silence on the point, it is generally regarded even 
by the socialists who reject it, as the solution of the far 
future. In a higher phase of communist society, Marx 
declared, when the narrow specializing of individual labor 
has disappeared and the forces of production have been 
multiplied, then, and then only, "can the narrow bourgeois 
horizon of right be wholly crossed and society inscribe 
upon its flags, Each according to his capabilities; to each 
according to his needs! " ^ 

Theoretically this ideal has much to commend it, espe- 

^ Annie Besant, Fabian Essays, p. 148. 

* On the Gotha Programme, p. 649. Hillquit, Socialism in Theory and 
Practice, p. 117: "To the socialists the old communistic motto, 'From 
each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,' generally 
appears as the ideal rule of distribution in an enlightened human society, 
and quite likely the time will come when that high standard will be gen« 
erally adopted by civilized communities." 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 203 

cially when needs are interpreted in an ideal sense as com- 
prising whatever is requisite for the fullest development of 
human personality. It would be the standard of a com- 
munity served by the genii of the lamp, able to call wealth 
into existence by a wish. To a limited degree, indeed, it 
might prove practicable; to a limited degree it does prove 
practicable to-day; the amount of police protection or use 
of the king's highway a citizen obtains is not based on 
equality or merit but on need. This degree of communistic 
distribution is, however, feasible simply because limited, 
and because the expense is met by levies on competitively 
earned wealth. Even were it desirable to adopt as the 
basis of distribution a standard which lays all stress on 
appetite, physical or mental, and none on efficiency and 
desert, it would be impossible: men's desires are infinite 
and the means of satisfying them will always be finite. If 
the individual's own estimate of his reasonable needs were 
taken, the socialist treasury would be bankrupt in a week : 
if official estimate, the prospect of jobbery and tyranny 
opened up must give the most fanatical pause. 

A variant of this proposal is suggested by Sidney Webb, 
who puts forward the needs of the occupation as the touch- 
stone.^ "The needs of the occupation" is a delightfully 
hazy phrase, but seems to imply a gradation according to 
dignity, payment in proportion to the amount of conspicu- 
ous waste required in the position, ten thousand a year to 
the bishop and fifty pounds for the curate. However this 
legal recognition of status and caste may appeal to the 
Brahmins reincarnated in the Fabian Societ3% it is hardly 
an effective slogan for proletarian vote-catching. 

* "This competitive wage we socialists seek to replace by an allowance 
for maintenance deliberately settled according to the needs of the occu- 
pation and the means at the nation's command. We already see official 
standards regulated, not according to the state of the labor market, but 
by consideration of the cost of living. This principle we seek to extend to 
the whole industrial world." — Socialism True and False, Fabian Tract, 
no. 51, p. 17. 



204 SOCIALISM 

Still a third standard is offered, that of service rendered. 
One variation of this standard is embodied in the old war- 
cry, "The right to the full product of one's labor." It has 
been a standing charge of many schools of socialism that 
under the existing system the worker does not receive this 
full product, but is robbed by the deductions made by 
landlord and capitalist. The hollowness of the charge is 
admitted when, in attempting to apply the principle to 
distribution under collectivism, it is recognized that deduc- 
tions must be made for the upkeep of capital. Further, 
it lies on the surface that a rigid application of this stand- 
ard would mean short shrift for the weak and the incapable, 
so a second deduction must be made, and still further 
allowances are required for the services shared in common. 
How is the balance to be distributed? How is it possible 
to isolate each man's contribution to the joint product, to 
determine what is the full product of his labor? What 
fraction shall go to executive direction, what to bookkeep- 
ing routine, what to manual operation? "To search for 
the portion of an individual's labor in a social product," 
admits Vandervelde, "is, in the vast majority of cases, 
like trying to find a needle in a haystack." ^ Even if by 
some fantastic process of marginal imputation this could 
be ascertained for the individual workshop, what of the 
contribution by all the imponderable forces without the 
factory, whose cooperation is essential? As a matter of fact 
this traditionally socialist standard is not socialistic at all, 
but the essence of individualism. If socialism stands for 
anything it stands for the all-importance of society. Val- 
ues, it must assert, are social products; the society of the 
past has prepared the knowledge and the skill requisite for 
the making, and the society of the present gives the mar- 
ket and distributive mechanism requisite for the vending, 
of every commodity or service. The persistence in social- 
istic thought of the demand for the "full product of one's 

» Op. cit.. p. 143. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 205 

labor" is a survival of primitive handicraft individual- 
ism.^ 

A second variation of payment according to service is 
the proposition to reward the workers in proportion to the 
socially necessary labor-time expended. The qualifying 
words make this a measure not of time spent but of work 
done. By many commentators Marx is held to have com- 
mitted himself to this standard by his advocacy of the 
labor-value doctrine, but it is answered, with reason, that 
this doctrine is held to be valid only in a capitalist econ- 
omy.^ However this may be, Marx has explicitly commit- 
ted himself to a standard of distribution — to rule pending 
the development of society to the stage where need shall 
be the only test — which involves paying to each the equi- 

^ " In a society of private producers, private individuals or their fam- 
ilies have to bear the cost of creating intellectual workers. An intellectual 
slave always commanded a higher price, an intellectual worker gets 
higher wages. In an organized socialist society, society bears the cost, 
and to it therefore belong the fruits, the greater value produced by in- 
tellectual labor. The laborer himself has no further claim. ^Vhence it 
follows that there are many difficulties connected with the beloved claim 
of the worker for the full product of his toil." — Engels, Landmarks oj 
Scientific Socialism, p. 222. 

On the assumption apparently made by Engels that superior capacity 
is entirely a matter of social training, the logical deduction would be 
equal remuneration for all. 

* SchafHe, Quintessence of Socialism, chap. 6, and Graham, Socialism 
New and Old, chap. 6. Hillquit is seemingly justified in denying that any 
deduction as to distribution standard can be drawn from the theory of 
value advanced (Socialism in Theory and Practice, p. 115), but is on less 
safe ground when he attempts to read into Marx a renunciation of all 
attempts to forecast future distribution relations. " In fact, Marx occu- 
pied himself just as little with the distribution of wealth in a future 
socialist state as Darwin occupied himself with the ultimate physical 
type of man. As a true man of science, he limited his researches to the 
past developments and existing facts and tendencies." Doubtless this is 
what Marx should have done had he been nourished on Darwinian con- 
cepts of evolution, but since as a matter of fact it was from Hegel rather 
than from Darwin that he drew his inspiration, his thinking is permeated 
with a teleological tendency quite alien from the "brute causation" of 
the biologist. 



206 SOCIALISM 

valent of his product, less the necessary social deductions, 
his product being rated on a labor-time basis. ^ The main 
difference between this and the preceding variation seems 
to be that the one gives the worker the whole product of 
his labor, the other, the whole product minus a propor- 
tionate reduction for public purposes. It is no clearer in 
the one case than in the other how that whole product is 
to be isolated and determined. Three fourths of x is as 
elusive as x. 

Without demanding the impossibly precise adjustment 
of work and reward provided in these proposals, many 
socialists favor the principle underlying them. It may be 
impossible to ascertain the absolute contribution made by 
any factor to the product, but relative efficiency as between 
units of the same factor is a matter of everyday computa- 
tion. It would be possible to discriminate between efficient 
and inefficient service, to estimate the comparative social 
utility of different occupations and to adjust the payment 
accordingly. The variations of income would, however, 
be less than to-day because of the equalization of oppor- 
tunity and the abolition of all privileges except the 
privilege of ability. This frank recognition of the superior 
claims of ability is especially distinctive of many present- 
day English socialists. 

From the standpoint of practicability this position seems 
the soundest yet discussed. So far as it can be deter- 
mined, efficiency must be the primary consideration in 

* " Accordingly the single producer (after the deduction) receives back 
exactly what he gives to it. For example, the social workday consists of 
the sum of individual working hours; the individual working time of the 
single producer is that part of the social workday furnished by him, his 
share of it. He receives from society a receipt that he has furnished so 
and so much work (after the deduction from his work for the common 
funds) and with this receipt he draws out of the social supply of the means 
of consumption as much as costs an equal amoimt of work. The same 
amount of work which he has given society in one form, he receives back 
in another form." — On the Gotha Programme, p. 648. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 207 

the adjustment of reward. It cannot, however, be made 
the sole consideration. The desire to base reward solely 
upon efBciency is incompatible with the necessity which 
socialists have been forced to recognize of equalizing the 
advantages of different trades to secure an equilibrium 
of labor-supply. If wages are lowered in the crowded 
callings and raised in the shunned, they will be inversely 
proportional to the attractiveness of the calling. If, then, 
the wage paid must also be in direct proportion to the ef- 
ficiency of the service, this can only be if the efficiency of 
labor to society and its attractiveness to the worker vary 
inversely. This would be to exalt into a national standard 
of justice the proposition held firmly by many old dames 
that the efficacy of castor oil and other medicines is to 
be rated inversely to the pleasantness of their taste. 
Clearly such equalization of advantages does away wuth 
the possibility of proportioning work and reward in ideal 
fashion. Clearly it is needed to make the machinery 
work. There is no other recourse than to adopt the ex- 
isting basis of distribution. 

Distribution of income to-day is not effected in accord- 
ance with any abstract principle of justice. It is a matter 
of bargaining power, of relative indispensableness, of abil- 
ity to make good a claim to sharing by the threat of with- 
drawal. So far as the division of reward between the differ- 
ent factors of production is concerned, the share that falls 
to labor, for example, is determined by the proportion of 
labor-force available relatively to the supply of land and of 
capital and of entrepreneur ability; by the relative degree 
of organization, efficient leadership, and financial staying- 
power; by the extent of alternative opportunities; by the 
existence of recognized standards of living, affecting pub- 
lic sentiment, strengthening union resistance, or setting 
limits to employers' demands; and by every other fact in 
the complex industrial situation which makes for or 
against bargaining strength. So far, again, as the rewards 



208 SOCIALISM 

of workers in diflPerent occupations are concerned, they 
vary to some extent with the grade of abihty, the rareness 
or abundance of the quahties required, and within strata 
of approximately equal ability, they vary in the one direc- 
tion according as barriers of expensive education or trade- 
union or profession-imposed test make membership a 
special privilege, and in the other according as the agree=. 
ableness of the work or the social prestige attached draws 
superabundant applicants; in short, they vary with every 
circumstance which affects demand and supply relations 
or otherwise determines relative bargaining strength. So 
far, finally, as the rewards of workers in the same occupa- 
tion are concerned, they vary with efficiency, to the extent 
that efficiency may be determined. Tried by any of the 
conflicting socialist standards of justice, this system of 
distribution is far from perfect. Yet it may be said to 
combine in a fair measure what is valid in each of the 
ideals set forth, and it ca,n be made to conform more closely 
without abandoning the flexible demand and supply ad- 
justment which makes possible the smooth working of the 
industrial order. Equality, indeed, it does not secure; 
much may be done to bring about greater equality of op- 
portunity; given a fair field, the inequalities of achieve- 
ment and of reward that result are not open to valid crit- 
icism. Needs are partially recognized by the provision, 
within the limits suggested, of services in common, and by 
the growing stress laid on the standard of living and a liv- 
ing wage. Service, so far as ascertainable, is made a de- 
termining factor in reward. The criticism to be directed 
against the socialist position on this subject, is not that 
there is no merit in the ideals set forth. It is, rather, 
that none of the standards of justice is itself an adequate 
interpretation of justice, and that no abstract standard of 
justice can be adopted as a practicable basis of distribu- 
tion. Further, when ethical standards are agreed upon, it is 
possible, within the limits of the existing order, to secure 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 209 

a rough approximation to them; it is possible, by strength- 
ening this or that factor, to alter the resultant of forces, 
hereby enlarging educational opportunity, thereby giving 
freer play to union activity, without endeavoring entirely 
to supersede the play of forces by rigid governmental 
rationing. Society's best hope lies in continuing to moralize 
the laws of supply and demand, not in endeavoring to dis- 
regard them. 

Grant, it may be urged, that the basis of distribution 
remains the same; the important fact remains that the 
product to be distributed will be so great as to yield a 
vastly greater dividend to the average worker. This raises 
the problem of problems which faces the socialist common- 
wealth, the maintenance of efficiency. For in the long run 
the stability of a socialist commonwealth would depend 
more on its success in the field of production than on its 
justice in the field of distribution. The source of social 
discontent to-day is the great gap between the material 
demands men make on life and the actual share that falls to 
their lot. A readjustment of values, the laying less stress 
on abundance of goods and chattels, the introduction of 
the simple life, might aid by lowering the upper demand 
level, but it is not this way socialist desires run. For 
socialism the gap must be filled by raising the supply 
level, increasing the goods and services in the national 
dividend. How may this be done? 

The popular socialist view is that under the new 
dispensation the huge share of wealth now annually ap- 
propriated by the capitalist class would be available for 
distribution among the workers, to their great easement. 
"Unfortunately," as Kautsky reminds the more optimistic 
brethren, "things are not to be done so simply. When we 
expropriate capital, we must at the same time take over 
its social functions" ^ — social functions of which little 
was heard when the capitalist was being denounced as 
^ Kautsky, The Social Revolution, p. 136. 



210 SOCIALISM 

a robber and exploiter of other men's toil. The capitalist, 
great or small, is to-day charged with the important obliga- 
tion of providing out of his income the capital necessary 
for the extension and development of industry. It is prob- 
able that one third of the total income of the American 
capitalist is at once reinvested in production. This service, 
which superficial critics are prone to overlook entirely, 
would, under socialism, necessarily be assumed by society 
as a whole. From the total product there must first, then, 
be made the large deduction necessary for the carrying- 
on of industry. Further, on the assumption that com- 
pensation rather than confiscation will be adopted, and 
the more gradual and political the method by which social- 
ism is attained the more inevitable is the choice of com- 
pensation, there must be made large deductions for the 
payment of the interest due the former owners of the cap- 
ital appropriated. No fraction of this income can be 
directly applied, under a socialist regime, to reinvestment; 
it must perforce be spent in consumption goods and society 
as a whole be burdened with the double task of pro\ading 
capital and providing for the ex-capitalist. ^ Kautsky is 
only facing the inevitable when he admits that there is 
little possibility of raising the workers' rewards from this 
source and that their only hope of betterment lies in an 
increase of production beyond the present level. ^ 

Under the existing system, it should be borne in mind, 
this betterment by the improvement of production is not 
merely a vague dream but an actual and continuing reality. 
The increase in the world's wealth is constant and sub- 
stantial, at least a proportionate share falling to the work- 
ing classes. What possibilities of increased production has 

^ See page 184, supra. 

* "There is none too much remaining over from the present income of 
the capitalist even if we con6scate capital at one stroke. There is even 
less if we wish to compensate the capitalist. It would then be absolutely 
necessary if we were to raise the wages of labor to raise production above 
its present amount." — Op. cit., p. 136. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 211 

socialism to offer to compare with these realities? In the 
first place, it is hoped, the productivity of labor could be 
increased by concentrating work in the largest and most 
perfect industrial plants and throwing the rest out of serv- 
ice.^ This appears theoretically quite feasible. It is, as 
the references to trust precedents show, a tendency which 
is actually at work in existing society, and its pace might 
well be accelerated, were industrial rather than financial 
considerations uppermost. The conclusion that the pro- 
ductivity of society might be doubled or tripled in this 
manner, however, rests on a neglect of the increased capital 
outlay required for the larger works, and on the unwar- 
ranted assumption of the applicability of large-scale pro- 
duction to the whole field of industry. Incidentally it may 
be queried how in these huge factories, organized like 
clockwork, Mr. Keir Hardie's lamenting workman^ is to 
escape from the minute and rigid discipline complex organ- 
ization entails, or what becomes of the visions of all-round 
versatility based on suppression of division of labor.'' Again, 
it is hoped that increased productivity will result from the 
abolition of parasitic industry, the diversion of the super- 
fluous hosts of middlemen to more productive employment. 
Assuming that the allegation of parasitism is sound, and 
not merely evidence of failure to comprehend the service 
rendered by a fully developed specialization of labor, it 
may be doubted whether the saving claimed would not be 
more than offset by the expense of keeping up the host of 
officials required to maintain equilibrium between supply 
and demand. The parasitical statistician would be little 
improvement on the parasitical middleman. 

There is here little promise that the productivity of 
industry would be appreciably increased beyond the 
present level, less that it would increase faster than it is 
doing year by year under existing conditions. Is there, in 

* Bebel, op. cit., p. 280; Kautsky, op. cit., p. 137. 

* Page 31, supra. 



212 SOCIALISM 

fact, any warrant for assuming that the present efficiency 
would be maintained? Grant that so far as the formal 
organization goes, with the whole available population 
enrolled in productive employment, and concentrated in 
the largest and best-equipped establishments, the socialist 
machinery would be adequate; the all-important question 
remains, what motor-force would be available to drive it? 
Were the organization never so perfect on paper, the col- 
lectivist state could survive only if the motor forces in- 
fluencing the individual workers were approachably as 
strong as those in operation to-day. For whatever it may 
work of ill, the existing institution of private property 
supplies this absolutely needful stimulus. It has grown 
up and flourished because rooted in imperishable qualities 
of human nature. It dikes and concentrates individual 
energy, making the connection between the activity and 
the material welfare of the worker and his family circle 
direct and compelling. It acts on one man through his 
ambition for preeminence and power, on another through 
his less vaulting hopes of fireside comfort and hobbies 
satisfied, on others, lacking full opportunity, capacity, or 
ambition, by their grip on bare existence. The sudden 
spurts of patriotic fervor or religious zeal may supplement 
but cannot replace this silent, eternal, persistent force. 
The emphasis, the over-emphasis, which Marx laid on the 
economic factor in history was only a recognition of this 
truth. 

A socialist commonwealth could offer no guarantee for 
efficient production comparable to this. What would be 
put in its place? Heightened zeal for the common weal? 
Perhaps for a rare minority, but for most men zeal for 
humanity spreads thin once the circle of family and friends 
is passed. The readiness of soldiers to die for their coun- 
try, which Vande^velde hopefully cites,* does not promise 
a willingness of workers to live for their country, unbuoyed 
' Op. cit., p. 183; urged as supplement, not as substitute. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 213 

np by the blare of trumpet and the momentary lust of 
battle. Mutual supervision, actuated by the interest each 
has in the increase of the national dividend? Again too 
diffused a force, effective, if at all, only against the most 
flagrant individual dereliction, not against the more 
gradual and more serious slackening and soldiering all 
along the line. The instinct of workmanship.'' Possibly, 
if every man could be detailed to work on his own hobbies, 
or if handicraft conditions returned; but in Herr Kautsky's 
huger steel mills and more highly specialized textile fac- 
tories of the future what greater scope for the instinct 
of workmanship than to-day.'' "Ambition, the desire to 
occupy the highest places in the hierarchy of labor? "^ 
A powerful force, but it is rather naive to imagine that 
the highest places in the hierarchy of labor will necessarily 
go to the hardest workers, rather than, when all business 
becomes politics, to the most adroit politician, the hangers- 
on of the huge national machine of the socialistic boss, or, 
if commission bureaucracy is installed, to the hierarchical 
favorites. More broadly, emulation, "the desire to excel 
and earn the recognition of their fellow men? " ^ It is urged 
with much force that men strive for pecuniary success 
because in a competitive society pecuniary success is the 
evidence and seal of ability and prowess, the readiest 
means to the end of recognition; under socialism, they will 
continue to strive for the same end, the recognition of their 
fellows, even though the present intermediary standards 
of pecuniary achievement are discarded. Undoubtedly 
this spirit of emulation underlies much of the activity of 
the western world, though it should not be stressed to the 
exclusion of the primary need for subsistence, the desire 
for comforts and luxuries, the thirst for the power and 
leverage pecuniary success can give. Money is not merely 
a counter in the game of success, or poker and bridge 

^ Vandervelde, op. cit., p. 182. 
' Hillquit, op. cit., p. 125. 



214 SOCIALISM 

would give less occasion for offense to the moralists. So 
far as it does motive activity, there is no warrant for be- 
lieving that under socialism it would suflSce to enforce 
socially desirable activity. The baseball hero, the cham- 
pion pugilist, the strutting warrior, the political demagogue 
might receive the crown of wild olives which in the paper 
scheme was meant for the worthy head clerk in the Sev- 
enty-third District's Statistical Bureau.^ Why assume that 
natural harmony of social and individual interest which 
the socialist critic has so frequently denied? Discrepan- 
cies will exist whether the end sought by the individual is 
kudos or is cash. The misdirection of public judgment and 
taste which the social student deplores will work equally 
disastrously whether acting directly in determining to 
whom honor shall be paid, or indirectly in determining 
what wares or services are to be purchased and which pur- 
suits be made most profitable. So long as the social stand* 
ards of what is meritorious and worthy of applause are 
not changed, and there is no ground for assuming that a 
regeneration of human nature will follow the mere substi- 
tution of the state for the individual as owner, there can be 
no important difference in the direction in which activity 
is directed; there will, however, be a disastrous difference 
in the intensity, once the motive of winning recognition 
is made the sole dependence and the motive of pecuniary 
success is discarded. 

There is, then, little likelihood that the socialist state 
could surpass or ever equal the existing order as an instru- 
ment of production. There is little likelihood that it could 
consistently work out a more just and practicable method 
of distribution. And, on the other hand, to attain this 
barren result, we are invited to set up an industrial system 
which has serious positive defects. Most serious is the 

^ "Each one is animated by the desire for social esteem; but it is the 
esteem of those about him, the esteem of his own class which governs hia 
conduct." — Ely, Socialism and Social Reform, p. 229. 



THE MODERN SOCLiLIST IDEAL 215 

danger that in abolishing competition we should abolish 
liberty. No amount of assurance given to-day by socialists 
that they do not wish to sacrifice liberty can avert that 
danger. In the centralized, all-powerful state which is 
the only organ that could do away with what the socialist 
terms the anarchy of production, and what he terms the 
exploitation of labor, freedom and flexibility would vanish. 
The worker might choose between employments; he could 
not choose between employers. He would be but one cog 
in an inconceivably complex machine. When all uncon- 
scious cooperation had been made conscious, when all the 
vast activity of the nation was made to pass in review 
before the central authority and receive the indispensable 
stamp of oflScial regularity, individual initiative would be 
cramped to the uttermost and social progress made cum- 
bersome and slow. To the consumer, the limitation of 
range in products and the lack of enterprise and experi- 
ment would prove intolerable. Especially dangerous would 
be the control of the organs of opinion. One of the most 
disquieting features of the present time is the grip which 
predatory interests have on a large part of the press, the 
paralyzing influence of the advertising on the editorial 
department. But to-day there is outlet possible for any 
group of enthusiasts seeking expression. Under an in- 
dividualist regime socialist papers rise and flourish. 
Under a socialist regime would individualist heretics find 
as easy utterance? Would the "Capital" of the revolution- 
ary Marx of the future receive the Imprimatur of the 
state printing bureau? Discontent, now scattered among 
scores of individual offenders, would then be concentrated 
on the state as sole offender, but its legal and peaceful 
expression would be made more difficult. To-day liberty 
is to many made a mockery by lack of equipment for 
the struggle, but the best way to make it real, to equalize 
opportunity, is not to set up a system which denies liberty 
to all. 



216 SOCIALISM 

If we turn to consider the fate of the institution of tie 
family in a collectivist state, we find the same hkehhood 
that in the effort to remedy an evil which besets the few it 
will be extended to all. Socialists with some justice resent 
the popular criticism directed against the exponents of 
"free love" within their ranks, from Bebel to Carpenter, 
on the ground that so far as theory goes, the party as a 
whole has never committed itself to such proposals, and 
that in practice there is no greater deviation from the 
standards of monogamous morality among sociahsts than 
among non-socialists. This may well be granted; granted, 
too, the justice of much of the socialist counter-criticism 
of the competitive conditions which for many make decent 
family life difficult or impossible. The fact remains, how- 
ever, that quite aside from what may be the practice or the 
theory of individual socialists to-day, the inevitable result 
of the establishment of the socialist regime would be the 
universal breaking-up of the family relation. Inevitably 
the family would be crushed between individual selfishness 
and state interference, the care of children would more and 
more be made a state affair, family life would be emptied 
of its responsibilities as well as its privileges, of its burdens 
as well as of its joys, and marriage, with this source of 
permanence removed, become a temporary and arbitrary 
relation. What future transformations the institution of 
the family may be fated to undergo none can prophesy, 
but this is certain, that recent discussion has only tended 
to strengthen the view that no substitute yet proposed can 
vie with it in social utility, as a source of moral discipline, 
a means of socializing our thinking and of giving the ideals 
of fraternity instinct, rather than paper mandates, for 
their basis. Any industrial revolution which involves the 
undermining of the family, rather than its reinforcement 
on firmer foundations, which involves the substitution of 
the clumsy, external barracks methods of the state, which 
makes the bureaucrat the universal mother and the stttte 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 217 

one vast orphan asylum, on that ground alone stands hope- 
lessly condemned.^ 

^ The diversity of views on this subject within the socialist ranks may 
be indicated by the following citations from representative spokesmen of 
the British socialist movement; so far as the majority of the rank and file 
are concerned, it is probable that the third quotation most nearly repre- 
sents their opinion : — 

"The present marriage system was based on the general supposition of 
the economic dependence of the woman on the man, and the consequent 
necessity for his making provision for her which she can legally enforce. 
This basis would disappear with the advent of social economic freedom, 
and no binding contract would be necessary between the parties as re- 
gards livelihood; while property in children would cease to exist, and 
every infant that came into the world would be born into full citizenship 
and would enjoy all its advantages, whatever the conduct of its parents 
might be. Thus a new development of the family would take place, on 
the basis not of a predetermined, lifelong business arrangement to be 
formally and nominally held to, irrespective of circumstances, but on 
mutual inclination and affection, an association terminable at the will of 
cither party. There would be no vestige of reprobation weighing on the 
dissolution of one tie and the forming of another." — Morris and Bax, 
Socialism: its Growth and Outcome, p. 199. 

"Socialism, in fact, is the state family. The old family of the private 
individual must vanish before it, just as the old waterworks of private 
enterprise, or the old gas company. They are incompatible with it. So- 
cialism assails the triumphant egotism of the family to-day, just as Chris- 
tianity did in its earlier and more vital centuries. So far as English social- 
ism is concerned (and the thing is still more the case in America), I must 
confess that the assault has displayed a quite extraordinary instinct for 
taking cover, but that is a question of tactics rather than of essential 
antagonism. . . . Socialism denies altogether the right of any one to 
beget children carelessly and promiscuously; and for the prevention of 
disease and evil births alike, the Socialist is prepared for an insistence 
upon intelligence and self-restraint quite beyond the current practice, 
. . . The state will pay for children born legitimately in the marriage it 
will sanction. A woman with healthy and successful offspring will draw 
a wage for each one of them from the state, so long as they go on weil." — 
H. G. Wells, Socialism and the Family, pp. 30, 58. 

Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, after showing the weakness of the pseudo- 
scientific contentions of earlier socialists that the family was fated to 
disappear, continues: "The bearing of children sometimes is, and some- 
times is not, a social function. If it is to be regarded as such, the state 
surely ought to have some power of control before it is asked to pay the 
bills, but that is quite impossible. Approached from this point of view, 
the proposal to endow mothers appears to be an outburst of an insane 



218 SOCIALISM 

Closely connected is the difficulty of overpopulation 
which any coUectivist state must face. The possibility of 
an expansion of population which would take up all the 
slack in the advance secured, is one which socialists have 
preferred to endeavor to ridicule than to answer. It is true 
that since Malthus wrote his " Essay on Population " to 
make this point against the sociaUst dreamers of perfection 
in his day, the counteracting tendencies to which he then 
attached too little weight have brought it about that it is 
not overpopulation but race suicide which worries us to- 
day. Growing prosperity has made, not for a higher, but 
for a lower, birth-rate. But this has been so simply because 
of the predominatingly individualist structure of society. 
There is little doubt that the chief factor in the decrease 
o the birth-rate has been the prudence inspired by the 
desire to rise in the world, now that democracy and wider 
economic opportunity have made the climbing possible. 
" The barriers of caste are down. . . . Wide stairways are 
opened between the social levels and men are exhorted to 
climb if they can. In such case prudence forbids whatever 
will impede his ascent or imperil his social standing. To 
the climber, children are encumbrances, and so the am- 
bitious dread the handicap of an early marriage and a 
large family." ^ Remove this connection between individ- 
ual prudence and individual comfort, and you have re- 
moved the most potent check on overpopulation. Only 
by the protecting dike of private property is an inundation 
of misery averted. Probably the next most important 
cause of the decrease has been the emancipation of women 
and the consequent greater weight attached to the woman's 
reluctance to be burdened by the confining cares of a 
large family. Here also a socialist regime, with its corn- 
individualism claiming the right of a man or woman to exercise a selfish 
will without restraint." — Socialism and Governmenf, ii, p. 148. 

^ Ross, Weslern Civilization and the Birth-Rate, Publications, American 
Economic Association, Third Series, viii, no. 1, p. 80. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST IDEAL 219 

munal care of children, would weaken the check. The 
only alternatives would be an overwhelming flood of 
population or the exercise by the state of that claim to 
control all births which, as Mr. Ramsay Macdonald de- 
clares, is "quite impossible," 

But, some will feel, it matters little whether socialism is 
desirable or undesirable; what matters is — if socialist 
forecasts are true, and the rapid expansion of national and 
municipal ownership give them plausibility — that social- 
ism is inevitable. To many, the spectre of manifest destiny 
makes argument unavailing, in spite of the constant un- 
willingness of fact to conform to the future confidently 
mapped out by the self-appointed soothsayers of manifest 
destiny. In bringing this brief review of the possibilities 
of a collectivist state to a close, a word may be said on this 
score. The essential fact to be borne in mind is the re- 
latively limited area within which national or municipal 
ownership has approved itself. It is in the important, but 
limited, area of public utilities, of strategic industries, that 
public ownership has its field; and in this field it is only an 
alternative to the expedient of public regulation, an ex- 
pedient which is only beginning to be given adequate test. 
Further, it is not permissible to deduce from the establish- 
ment or the success of a limited number of public industries 
the inevitability or the success of universal public industry. 
A limited degree of public ownership succeeds simply be- 
cause it is a limited degree, succeeds because private in- 
dustry, in individual forms or in the socialized joint-stock 
form, dominates the field as a whole. It is private industry 
that provides the capital, private industry that trains the 
men and tries out the methods, private industry that sets 
the pace, and — not least of its services — private indus- 
try that provides the ever-possible outlet for escape. As 
Hesiod sang nearly thirty centuries ago, the half is greater 
than the whole. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 

The Utopian tactics of Fourier and Owen, of Saint-Simon 
and the Saint-Simonists, met, we have seen, with little 
direct success. The appeal made to all men of good will, 
irrespective of class or of rank, had fallen on deaf ears. 
Sweet reasonableness and community experiment had done 
little to raise socialism out of sectarian weakness and iso- 
lation. The time had come for a radical change of front. 
The new leaders of socialism were to seek victory by mak- 
ing the working classes their sole constituency and the 
class war their only policy. 

The new tactics were not merely the reflection of the 
more aggressive temperament of the new leaders. The 
personal qualities and the intellectual preconceptions of 
Marx and Lassalle, of the men of the Communist League 
and the International, doubtless had important and last- 
ing influence on the character of the movement, but in 
the main the truth is rather that the changed objective 
conditions demanded leaders of a new type. The revolu- 
tion in the industrial world called for social and political 
readjustment. The days of handicraft were passing, the 
ever increasing scale of machine production put individual 
ownership of factory or railroad beyond the reach of the 
vast majority of workers. New policies to meet the new 
situation were taking shape; cooperation, trade union 
action, legislative regulation, were all being put to the test. 
Most radical of all proposals was the sociahst's panacea of 
collective ownership and operation of aU industry. The 
task which awaited the coming leaders of socialism was 
to divert the hopes and ambitions of the working classes 



THE MODERN SOCLVLIST MOVEMENT 221 

into the latter channel, to arouse the contented and per- 
suade the discontented that here or nowhere was salvation. 

In this attempt to unite the socialist ideal and the labor 
movement, Marx played the foremost part.^ Of the revo- 
lutionary spirits of his day, none surpassed him in dynamic 
energy or resolute fidelity, none equaled him in the grasp 
of social tendencies or the strength and coherence of con- 
viction. His analysis of past and present revealed the 
whole world process as unceasing class struggle. In the 
future, as in the past, progress must come through the 
efforts of the oppressed class to secure the dominance to 
which the changing industrial conditions predestined it. 

Predestined? It is difficult to discover how far Marx 
and his followers were fatalists, Calvinists minus God, 
and how far confident of their power to mould fate. A 
deep consciousness of the blind inevitableness of economic 
evolution, and of the folly of attempting to alter one least 
scene in the drama of the rise and fall of capitalism, alter- 
nated with the combative instinct of strong-willed men to 
assert their personalities and come to grips with fortune. 
It is perhaps possible to find average consistency in the 
Marxian attitude. The economic revolution of course 
must be held inevitable: no conscious efi^ort would materi- 
ally hinder or materially advance the concentration of in- 
dustry in huge establishments, the centralization of wealth 
in ever fewer hands, the sinking of the workers to ever lower 
depths of misery and degradation, the recurrence of crises 
in ever more serious forms. This did not mean that the 
proletariat were to play a passive part, waiting "until some 
fine day the roast pigeons of the social revolution would 
fly into their mouths." ^ They might trust in dialectic, but 

1 "By a crowning application of the Hegelian method, Marx united 
the Idea and the Fact. ... He brought the Socialist thought into 
proletarian life, and proletarian life into Socialist thought." — Jaures, 
Studies in Socialism., p. 133. 

* Kautsky, Das Erfurter Programm, p. 106. 



222 SOCIALISM 

none the less must keep their powder dry, fighting with 
fate, not against it. They had stern work to do, organizing 
and disciplining their forces, that in the fullness of time 
they might strike for freedom, strike to bring the form of 
industrial society into harmony with its changed content. 
Until the economic evolution had run its course, prole- 
tarian revolt was premature and doomed to failure; when 
that course was run, revolt was necessary and predestined 
to success. The lines were not to be changed, but the 
actors might be trained better or worse. The creed com- 
pelled passivity, except in organizing and preparing, until 
the dawn of revolution broke; then action sharp, deter- 
mined, ruthless, gigantic. 

Assuming the time ripe for aggressive action, what form 
should that action take.? Should the struggle for mastery 
be made on the field of battle, on the floor of parliament, 
or in the workshop.? In the time and temper of the found- 
ers of modern socialism but one answer was possible. The 
class war was interpreted literally. "Force," declared 
Marx, "is the midwife of every old society pregnant with 
the new." In the heroic days of the modern sociaHst move- 
ment the leading spirits looked to a trial of strength on 
the field of battle. The bourgeois revolutions formed the 
model for the proletarian. Particularly in Paris the tra- 
dition of the glorious days of '89 and of '93 still lived. 
Babeuf's fellow conspirator, Buonarroti, handed on the 
torch to Blanqui and to Marx. Secret societies of the Car- 
bonari type kept up a feverish, if flickering, subterranean 
activity, preparing sounding manifestoes and drafting the 
programme for the day after the Great Revolution. The 
Communist League, the secret society for which Marx and 
Engels drafted the famous "Communist Manifesto," was 
the successor of Weitling's Federation of the Just and 
Schuster's Federation of the Banished. From France the 
ramifications spread throughout Europe, and particularly 
through feudal Germany. In England sanguine socialist 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 223 

observers expected to see the proletarian discontent which 
had manifested itself in Luddite riots, Sheffield explosions 
and bitterly contested strikes, and had culminated in the 
Chartist agitation, blindly felt to involve the "knife and 
fork question," lead to fierce and bloody civil war.^ 

Writing late in 1847, Marx was of the opinion that 
wherever the industrial classes as a whole had not carried 
the day against absolute monarchy and feudal squirearchy, 
the proletarian revolt could come only as an appendix to 
the final bourgeois upheaval. He advocated a continuance 
and an extension of the tactics of 1793 and of 1830, fighting 
side by side with the middle classes till victory dawned, 
then turning upon them in an attempt to snatch the fruits 
of victory. 2 The " Manifesto " was not off the press when 
the first of the series of revolts began which were to shake 
nearly every capital in Europe, and put terror in the hearts 
of kings.^ At once the members of the Communist League 

^ " Prophecy is nowhere so easy as in England, where all the compon- 
ent parts of society are clearly defined and sharply separated. . . . The 
proletarians, driven to despair, will seize the torch which Stephens has 
reached to them; the vengeance of the people will come down with a wrath 
of which the rage of 1793 gives no true idea. The war of the poor against 
the rich will be the bloodiest ever waged. ... It is too late for a peace- 
ful solution. The classes are divided more and more sharply, the spirit 
of resistance penetrates the workers, the bitterness intensifies, the guerilla 
skirmishes become concentrated in more important battles, and soon a 
slight impulse will suffice to set the avalanche in motion. Then, indeed, 
will the war-cry resound through the land: 'War to the palaces, peace 
to the cottages.' but then it will be too late for the rich to beware." 
— Engels, Condition of the Working-Class in England in 18^, pp. 296- 
298. 

2 Communist Manifesto, p. 63. Cf. Jaures, op. cit., p. 136. 

3 Cf. Letters of Qneen Victoria, IS37-18GI. King Frederick William IV 
of Prussia to Queen Victoria, Feb. 27, 1848: "Most Gracious Queen 
and Sister . . . God has permitted events which decisively threaten 
the peace of Europe. ... If the revolutionary party carry out its pro- 
gramme, 'the sovereignty of the people,' my minor crown will be 
broken, no less certainly than the mighty crowns of your Majesty, and 
a fearful scourge will belaid upon the nations: a century of rebellion, of 
lawlessness, of godlessness. ... On both knees I adjure you, use for the 



224 SOCIALISM 

put their preaching into practice, joining the democratic 
forces and urging them to more radical action; Marx, 
calHng upon the people of the Rhenish provinces to re- 
volt, through the columns of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 
Born leading the Dresden uprising, Engels serving as 
adjutant in Willich's volunteers, Liebknecht a bombardier 
in Becker's battery, Lassalle fomenting resistance at 
Diisseldorf, took their manful part in the struggle. But 
nowhere in Germany, nor in Austria, Hungary nor Italy, 
was even the first stage to victory attained: after brief 
panic the forces of reaction conquered, and the defeated 
communists who had called on the proletarians of the world 
to unite and offered themselves as leaders in the reorganiza- 
tion and control of industrial Europe, split into jealous 
and warring camps, one petty faction denouncing and 
betraying the other to the police. 

In France fortune for a time was more propitious. 
Louis Philippe and the regime of privilege and corruption 
for which he stood were overthrown with unexpected ease. 
The extreme Left took a leading part in the demonstrations 
which overthrew the old government and claimed and won 
recognition in the policy and personnel of the new. The 
right to work was formally proclaimed, and under Louis 
Blanc and Albert, the workingman member of the pro- 
vincial administration, a system of national workshops 
was instituted. The demands of Cabet and Blanqui and 
Raspail for more thoroughgoing communistic measures 

welfare of Europe, 'Engellands England.' With these words I fall at your 
Majesty's feet." — ii, p- 177. 

Queen Victoria to King of the Belgians July 11, 1848: "When one 
thinks of one's children, their education, their future, — and prays for 
them, — I always think and say to myself, ' Let them grow up fit for 
whatever station they may be placed in, high or low.' . . . Altogether 
one's disposition is so changed — bores and trifles which one would 
have complained of bitterly a few months ago, one looks upon as good 
things and quite a blessing — provided one can keep one's position in 
quiet."— ii, p. 217. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 225 

brought reaction, the exclusion of the sociahsts from the 
government, counter-conspiracy, the closing-down of the 
workshops, bloody fighting which left thousands dead in 
street and barricade, and finally, panic and reaction which 
swung the pendulum past republicanism to the pinch-beck 
imperialism of the third Napoleon.* 

The failure of force did not at once disillusion the social- 
ist leaders. At most in Marx's eyes it proved that the 
economic conditions were not yet ripe for the assumption 
of power by the proletariat, the bourgeoisie not yet played 
out. It did not prove that force would fail when the eco- 
nomic hour had struck. Yet slowly the faith in appeal to 
arms grew weak. The advancing prosperity of Europe, in 
which the working classes shared, lessened the thirst for 
barricade heroics. The advance of military science gave 
the professional soldier ever greater advantage over the 

^ The failure of the National Workshops is sometimes attributed to 
the desire of some of Blanc's colleagues to discredit his proposals (see, 
however, Strachey, Problems and Perils of Socialism, p. 125). This plea 
cannot be advanced to excuse the failure of Blanc's organization of the 
tailoring trade at the Hdtel Clichy. Walter Bagehot's contemporary 
account is of interest: "This experiment began with peculiar advantages. 
The government made the building suitable for the purpose, without rent 
or charge, furnished the capital, without interest, and gave an order for 
twenty-five thousand suits for the National Guard. . . . Eleven francs 
per day was the contract price [ordinarily charged by the master tailors 
of Paris], including the profit of the master tailor, the remuneration for 
his workshops and tools, and for the interest of his capital. The govern- 
ment agreed to give the organized tailors at the Hotel Clichy the same 
price . . . and to advance every day two francs for each man as sub- 
sistence money; when the contract was completed the balance should be 
paid, and equally divided among the men. . . . The accounts were 
squared. Eleven francs per dress, for so many dresses, came to so much. 
The subsistence money, at two francs a day, had to be deducted. The 
balance was to be divided as profit. Alas, it was a balance of loss, not of 
gain. Subsistence money had been paid equal to rather more, when it 
came to be calculated, than sixteen francs for each dress, in place of 
eleven, at which the master tailor would have made a profit, paid his 
rent, the interest of his capital, and good wages to his men, in place of a 
daily pittance for bare subsistence. . . . Louis Blanc is not a match for 
the master tailors of Paris." — The Economist, May 20, 1848, p. 562. 



226 SOCIALISM 

amateur revolutionist. The experiences of the Commune 
revealed the strength and the solid conservativism of the 
rural population whom the socialists had left out of their 
reckoning. The gradual extension of the franchise opened 
up easier paths to victory. The growi:h of the concept 
of evolution put violent and cataclysmic changes out of 
court — just as the current mutation theories, with their 
recognition of the sudden "explosion" of new species, 
have afforded color for the revival of the catastrophic 
social doctrine. The traditions of 1830 and 1848 died with 
the men who had taken active part. The old watchwords 
long survived in the outbursts of the old guard, Liebknecht 
declaring in 1874 that socialism is simply a question of 
force, which cannot be solved in parliament, but in the 
street and on the field of battle and there alone, ^ Marx in 
the following year still looking forward, in true Blanqui 
spirit, to the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, 
and in the year of Marx's death the Congress of Zurich 
reiterating that force alone could luring about the Revo- 
lution. But more and more, except in countries like Russia 
where autocracy's reliance on force prompted the use of 
force in return, the tactics of open revolution ceased to 
have practical weight, and survived chiefly in rhetorical 
antitheses between ballot and bullet designed to send chills 
up bourgeois spines. Engels himself was compelled to re- 
cognize the new situation, and in his political testament in 
1895 he completely and almost fiercely renounced the doc- 
trine he once had preached and practiced.^ 

The emphasis shifts to economic and political action. 
The next great landmark in the development of the social- 
ist movement was the founding of the International Work- 
ingmen's Association. Established in London in 1864, 
largely on French initiative, it was nominally a union of 

* Ueber die politische Stellung der Sozialdemokratie,insbesondere mii 
Bezug auf den Reichstag. 

^ Preface to Marx's Class War in France, 1895. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 227 

the class-conscious workingmen of Europe and America, 
organized on trade-union lines. As a matter of fact its 
heterogeneous ranks included hard-headed English trade 
unionists, chiefly interested in putting an end to the com- 
petition of foreign underpaid labor and the intervention 
of foreign blacklegs in strikes, Russian nihilists, Polish re- 
volutionists and Italian nationalists, French Proudhonists 
looking to the mutualization of credit, Blanquist terrorists, 
and German Social-Democrats. The conflict of views 
within its ranks prevented the development of any clear- 
cut and consistent policy. The organization of the pro- 
letariat in political parties was a cardinal principle of the 
International, but little actual progress was made in this 
direction.^ The first task was to rouse the workingmen 
to a sense of their wrongs, and the discontent thus stirred 
was turned rather into economic than political channels, 
ranging from cooperative production and credit proposals 
to the advocacy of the general strike. The active work of 
the International consisted chiefly in the organization and 
support of a few strikes, the establishment of some short- 
lived press-organs, and the circulation of revolutionary 
pamphlets. Without financial resources, torn asunder by 
doctrinal and racial and personal differences, it was in 
reality a feeble force, but by its energy in holding congresses 
and passing resolutions it profoundly impressed Europe 
with a sense of impending revolution. In the congresses 
of Geneva, Lausanne, Brussels, and Basle the more radical 
elements gradually gained the upper hand and from reso' 
lutions in favor of shorter hours, reform in taxation, and 
the organization of credit banks and cooperative societies, 
the International advanced to demands for the nationaliza- 

1 "It is true that the International had proclaimed the necessity of 
political struggles, but this was only in theory. In practice, in organiza- 
tion, political struggles were something new, and organization as a 
political party, in some countries where the working classes had often 
been duped, was viewed with mistrust." — G. Jaeckh, The International, 
translated by Bonhomme, p. 115. 



228 SOCIALISM 

tion, first of mines and railways and later of all the land. 
The sanction given by the General Council to the Paris 
Commune, for which, however, it had little direct respons- 
ibility, cost the allegiance of the wavering English unions, 
and the crushing of the rising extinguished for a time the 
radical French labor movement. Finally, personal dissen- 
sions came to a head and wrecked what was left of the 
International. Marx, who had conquered the Mazzini and 
Proudhon elements, could not quell the revolt of the 
Russian extremist, Bakunin, except by a virtual dissolu- 
tion of the organization. The difference between the two 
men was not, as some recent socialist writers claim, eager 
with growing respectability to disavow their poor relations, 
the difference between a collectivist advocating political 
action and conquest of state powers and an anarchist 
advocating propaganda by dynamite. The doctrinal dif- 
ferences were not at this time so serious as the racial and 
temperamental differences, and the disputes as to the 
internal organization of the Association. The genius for 
laying bare the shady side of men and systems and for at- 
tributing evil motives on the slightest colorable grounds, 
which made Marx so effective a force as critic and agitator, 
unfitted him for constructive effort or for permanent 
cooperation with his fellows. With the passing of the 
International his direct participation in the organization 
of the socialist forces ceased, though until his death he 
continued by personal intercourse and voluminous cor- 
respondence to advise and inspire the leaders of the 
European movement. 

The fiasco of the International had shown the futility, 
at that early stage, of a Europe-wide organization, doomed 
by the heterogeneity of the elements comprised and the 
diversity of conditions faced, to sterile declamation and 
feeble and desultory action. The International had stimu- 
lated discontent, had called forth leaders, and had pro- 
vided an arena for the clash of conflicting theories, from 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 229 

which Marxism had emerged as the most thoroughgoing 
and scientific of the creeds contending for proletarian favor. 
The time had come for movements primarily national, 
working in fields not too great for coherent organization 
and varying in type with the varying conditions faced. 
It is not possible within the limits here set to follow in 
detail the development of the socialist movement in Europe 
and America. All that can be done is to set forth briefly 
the outstanding features and tendencies of socialism in the 
countries where the movement has attained most import- 
ance and significance. 

Easily first among these countries is Germany. German 
socialism is distinguished by its primacy in the field, by 
its predominatingly political character, by the success 
achieved in agitation, and by the clear-cut, scientific 
principles on which it has been based. It is equally signi- 
ficant in the record it presents of gradual but far-reaching 
evolution in tactics and aims. 

The German working-class movement from the outset 
was political. The programme of force found few adher- 
ents. The solid battalions of the Prussian and Austrian 
autocracies made an appeal to arms futile unless in mass; 
and the German people, with little of the genius for 
revolution of their Latin neighbors, were not easily to be 
roused to open rupture with the powers ordained. Eco- 
nomic organization lagged. The trade unions, hampered 
by a more backward industrial development, by gild sur- 
vivals and repressive laws, were half a century behind the 
British movement. Cooperation was in its infancy in 
the sixties. Producers' cooperation was enthusiastically 
advocated by the Lassalle wing of socialists, but only on 
the basis of state aid to be forced by political success. 
Consumers' cooperation was fated to score more substantial 
success, but it was discounted by its Liberal sponsorship 
and by the prevalent belief in what Lassalle termed the 



230 SOCIALISM 

iron law of wages, that Malthusian-Ricardian bogey which 
warned off all projects to decrease the cost of hving. The 
personal factor made for political action, through the 
influence of Ferdinand Lassalle, that other brilliant Jew 
who shares with Marx the honor of founding the German 
movement. He was passionately convinced, in opposition 
to the laissez-faire principles of his Liberal antagonists and 
the anarchistic leanings of many of his socialist friends, 
that the state was to play a great creative role in the 
future, transforming capitalism and freeing the workers 
from their industrial and political bondage. It was, then, 
the primary duty of the proletariat to gain control of this 
mighty engine, and to use it to secure their economic dom- 
inance. Finally, the sweeping grant of universal suffrage, 
in the North German Confederation in 1867 and in the 
German Empire four years later, opened at a stroke the 
path to power. It had come, not because of democratic and 
socialist pressure, but from Bismarck's desire to play off 
working class against middle class, and from his more 
statesmanlike ambition to stimulate a common imperial 
sentiment among the whole people, submerging local 
patriotism and prejudice. Whatever the motive, it had 
come, and its coming made it certain that the struggle o'f 
the working class for bettered conditions would be made 
in the political field, where their strength was relatively 
greatest. 

The success of the German movement has been un- 
paralleled in so far as numbers, disciplined unity, and 
thorough organization constitute success. The primary 
condition of success lay in the existence of grievances 
clamoring for redress. In length and arduousness of toil 
and in meagreness of reward the German workman was 
worse off than his English cousin, even though the special 
evils of a transition to a capitalist economy were not per- 
mitted, in the warning light of experience, to develop to 
such a degree. In the political field, with Germany still 



THE MODERN SOCLVLIST MOVEMENT 231 

half feudal, still, in a socialist phrase, half Asiatic, the 
comparison was even more unfavorable. When, however, 
the social unrest of the century began to stir the German 
workingman, and he turned to politics for help, he found 
little promise of democratic fellowship in the parties that 
held, or were to hold, the field. Conservative and Agrarian 
were hopelessly antagonistic to an urban proletariat — 
and in a country where Tory Democracy was the prerog- 
ative of the Crown. The Centre or Catholic party, with 
characteristic opportunism, bid for the workingman's vote, 
not without some success but its confessional restrictions 
and peasant majority barred it from ever becoming the 
party of the proletariat. The Liberal party, representing 
the manufacturing and commercial classes, bettered its 
English model in its hopelessly rigid Manchesterism ; the 
unfortunate group system of Continental politics, isolating 
and accentuating every special interest, has prevented the 
gradual compromise and permeation of the bi-party system 
which has developed the British Liberals from Whiggery 
to Democracy. The Radicals, the most formidable rivals 
of the Socialists, were handicapped by internal dissensions. 
The evangelical Christian Socialists, under Todt and 
Stocker, were to make a strong appeal, but with little 
prospect of success, once it became clear that their social- 
ism was paternalism and the:- Christianity largely anti- 
Semitism. 

The field was open for the Social Democratic party. It 
was well equipped for the campaign. It offered a glittering 
promise of a New Jerusalem where the least should be 
the greatest. It was fortunate in leaders of outstanding 
ability and devotion; Marx, giving not always heeded 
counsel from his London retreat; Lassalle, whose task of 
organizing the workingmen in his Universal Workingmen's 
Association was but begun when the bullet of Count von 
Racowitza ended at once his political agitation and his 
matrimonial intrigues, but not his fascination for the 



232 SOCIALISM 

populace; Liebknecht and his convert Bebel, masters of 
persuasion and of strategy, bringing with them to sociahsm 
cohorts of South German workingmen and welding them 
into a single party along with the Lassallian faction ; 
Singer the organizer; Kautsky the keeper of the faith — 
these and scores of younger men gave their lives to the 
cause. The party was unequaled in its thoroughgoing 
organization, in its strict yet flexible discipline, in its 
activity in propaganda, in its attempt through educa- 
tional, dramatic, and social activities to provide within 
its own ranks scope for well-rounded development. Fin- 
ally, the ill-advised attempt of Bismarck to stamp out dis- 
affection by the anti-socialist laws, which from 1878 to 
1890 made all socialist agitation whether in press or on 
platform illegal and thereby drove it underground, only 
increased the determination and the faith of the perse- 
cuted, and proved once more that the blood of the mar- 
tyrs is the seed of the church. 

The German Social Democratic party is significant, not 
only for its success, but, in its earlier years at least, for its 
revolutionary orthodoxy. This uncompromising attitude 
was the result both of its political environment and of the 
creed it had adopted. The rigid class divisions of Germany 
and especially of Prussia, and the comparatively rigid 
party lines which in large measure corresponded, made fu- 
sion with other forces difficult; the antagonism created by 
the anti-socialist laws long made it impossible. The system 
of personal government exerted important influence; the 
lack of cabinet responsibility increased the tendency of a 
radical party in Reichstag or Landtag to take the critical, 
negative attitude of a permanent and professional oppo- 
sition, and prevented the sobering influence which woidd 
have come with even partial participation in power. 

Nor would the creed to which the party was wedded 
permit the heresy of compromise. The official confession 
of faith of the German Social Democrats is contained in 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 233 

the Erfurt Programme, adopted in 1891. It consists of two 
parts, a general summary of the tendencies of capitalist 
development and of the socialist remedy, and a detailed 
statement of immediate demands. The first part of the 
programme is a thoroughgoing exposition of the purest 
Marxism: the development of capitalist economy leading 
inevitably to the division of society into capitalist mono- 
polists and propertyless proletarians, the consequent ever 
more bitter class struggle, the growing industrial reserve 
army, the increasing misery and degradation of the work- 
ers, the ever more devastating crises, the solution in 
collective ownership, wrought out by the working class 
unaided, fighting on the political field. Nothing could 
avert the onward march of capitalist development, 
nothing avert the crash of revolution, the victory of the 
proletariat, and the establishment of the collective com- 
monwealth. Such a creed, we have seen, might not in- 
volve fatalistic apathy in its adherents, for their action, 
also, was fated. But it turned activity into the channel 
of preparation, of drilling troops for the conflict, "shaping 
this battle of the working class into a conscious and united 
effort and showing it its naturally necessary end,"^ rather 
than into the channel of resistance to the degrading tend- 
encies of economic evolution, the channel of attempts to 
remedy ills, to soften antagonisms and avert collision. It 
committed the socialist to the policy of governmental 
laissez-faire. 

The logical deduction from this programme was that 
the political tactics of the party must be mainly negative. 
The aim was not to wield a share of power in the existing 
state, but to seize power to abolish the existing state. The 
more extreme opinion questioned the wisdom even of 
entering Parliament. Liebknecht feared Bismarck bearing 
gifts, and scorned universal suffrage within a class state, 
police and army ridden, with the reality of power still 
* Erfurt Programme, in Ensor, Modern Socialism, p. 319. 



234 SOCIALISM 

gripped by an active monarch and his chancellor and by a 
reactionary upper house, as an utter sham, the plaything 
of absolutism, the basis of a new Csesarism, the fig-leaf of 
tyranny.^ Liebknecht's attack on parliamentary action 
rose to plague him twenty years later, when the Berlin 
"opposition" or "Jeunes," a section of the party with 
anti-parliamentary leanings, tending later to anarchism, 
turned his own bitterest phrases against the growing 
legality of the party. These opinions, however, have at 
no time received the support of the majority of the 
party. 

More unanimous was the refusal to participate in the 
elections in those of the individual states of the empire 
which retained high property qualifications or the three- 
class suffrage. Given the division of the electors into three 
classes, equal, not in numbers but in the total of the direct 
taxes paid, with a handful of the rich in the first class, a 
larger number of the well-to-do in the second class, and 
the great majority of the electors in the third class, given 
open voting and the indirect system of election, whereby 
each of these classes chooses an equal number of secondary 
electors to make the actual choice, it is clear that a party 
appealing primarily to the working class would be power- 
less without alliance. Alliance was anathema, and so for 
years the socialists did not participate in the elections of 
Prussia and other states. It was not till the Congress of 
1893 that the question of participation was even broached, 
only to be met with a resolute pronouncement for the 
orthodox tactics; success by independent efforts was 
impossible, it was declared, and success by compact with 
bourgeois parties would be dear bought by the demoraliza- 
tion and strife that would follow. But the heresy would 
not down. In 1897 a compromise was put through re- 
quiring participation but forbidding the compacts with 

* Cf . Ueher die politische Stellung der Sozialdemokratie, insbesondere mii 
Bezug auf den Reichstag, 1869. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 235 

other parties which alone would make participation effect- 
ive. Next year participation was left to the option of the 
local districts; the following congress, with much face- 
saving reaflSrming of the class struggle and declarations 
that it cherished no illusions as to the character of the 
bourgeois parties, nevertheless resolved not to refuse in 
specific cases to cooperate with the more progressive 
parties in order to ward off reactionary proposals, or to 
better the social conditions of the working classes, or to in- 
crease the party strength; and finally, in 1900, a resolution 
forbidding alliances was rejected and participation made 
compulsory.^ The political "cow-trading," as Singer scorn- 
fully called it, thus sanctioned, has gone on apace, as the 
party has grown more absorbed in the political game; 
bargains are made for support at the polls wherever sup- 
port is for exchange, here from the Radical, there from 
the Liberal, even from the Clerical : 7ion olet. 

In parliament, the socialist representative must not 
be of it: he must be a critic of the comedy, not an actor 
in it. Nothing should be done to imply acquiescence in the 
established order. The logical demand of Liebknecht, in 
his radical days, that the socialist members should enter 
the Reichstag only to read a revolutionary protest and 
then withdraw, proved too extreme a deduction for accept- 
ance. The prevailing theory in the early years was that 
the socialist members should "speak through the win- 
dows" to the masses without. The resolutions adopted by 
the Stuttgart Congress in 1870, as a compromise between 
the conflicting views of Liebknecht and Rebel, sanctioned 
parliamentary activity for purposes of agitation, admitted 
tentatively that action might be taken to advance the 
interests of the working classes, but held that on the whole 
a negative, critical attitude was to be maintained, directed 

* Protokoll iiber die Verhandlungen des Parteitages des sozialdemokrat- 
ischen Pariei Deutsrhlands, Mainz, 1900, where oa p. 213 previous posi- 
tions are conveniently summarized. 



«36 SOCIALISM 

toward unmasking the shams of bourgeois parliamentary 
government. Typical of the gradual advance toward con- 
structive work are the declarations of the Coburg Congress 
ih 1874, that participation should be essentially for propa- 
ganda, and the St. Gall resolution in 1887, that agitation 
should receive the emphasis. The growing, if negative, 
recognition afforded to positive proposals scarcely kept 
pace with the action of the socialist deputies, and their 
parliamentary activities were made the subject of full- 
dress debates at Halle and Erfurt, in 1890 and 1891. In 
the Halle debate, where the chief opposition came from 
the revolutionary Berlin wing, the necessity for positive 
activity was declared in a resolution, adopted unanimously, 
calling on the Reichstag members to press the socialist 
demands on the opposing parties, but at the same time to 
strive for reforms possible within the framework of the 
existing society, without, however, cherishing any illusions 
as to the importance of such activity. In the following 
year, when the party leaders had to steer a middle course, 
"avoiding on the one hand the bog of opportunism and 
on the other the follies of anarchism," ^ more verbal sanc- 
tion is given the negative view.^ Ever since that congress, 
however, positive participation in parliamentary labors 
has become more and more the accepted practice, even 

> Liebknecht, Protokoll, Erfurt, p. 210 . 

* Cf. the reversed roles of Bebel and Liebknecht. Bebel, ibid., p. 174: 
"The chief aim in our parliamentary activity is to enlighten the masses 
concerning our opponents, and not the consideration whether any demand 
will be attained or not. It is from this standpoint that we have always 
made our proposals. . . . We have steadily taken the stand that the 
question is not whether this or that will be granted; for us the main thing 
is that we make demands no other party can make." Liebknecht, i6zd., 
p. 206: "We have practical work to do in the Reichstag. . . . How have 
we attained our power in Germany? Simply because from the beginning, 
instead of saying 'we live in cuckooland and care nothing about practical 
things,' everywhere we made our way into the municipalities, the Land- 
tags and the Reichstag, on practice bent, and used every weapon that we 
had, for the weal of the working classes." 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 237 

though views have differed as to the permissibility of 
specific measures. Socialists take, as a matter of course, 
a useful part in the work of committees, frequently as 
reporter or chairman, they accept the honor of the vice- 
presidency of the Landtag, they make the court visit this 
station in life demands, — not without protest from the 
outraged radicals, — and, it is alleged, have even kissed 
the Frau Minister's hand.^ 

One problem of parliamentary tactics remains unsettled, 
and has given rise of late years to bitter and prolonged 
debate. It has been considered as of sacramental import- 
ance, a symbol of the rejection of the class state, to vote 
against the budget, even though including many grants 
of which the socialists approve. In the Reichstag, where 
the expenditure voted is mainly for military purposes, 
there has been no hesitation. In several of the Landtags, 
however, especially in the South, where class antagonisms 
are less sharp than in the North, and where more liberal 
suffrage laws permit greater socialist influence, the mem- 
bers of the party have on several occasions voted for budg- 
ets containing grants which they had urged or represent- 
ing a lesser evil than alternative proposals. These lapses 
from grace have been debated at length in three party 
congresses, at Frankfort in 1891, in Liibeck in 1901, and 
at Niirnberg in 1908: in the latter year as formerly the 
action was condemned by a majority vote, but it is signi- 
ficant of the growing discontent, especially in the South, 
with the official irreconcilability, that throughout the dis- 
cussion the policy of opportunism was defended with a 
frankness and vigor never before equaled, and that at the 
close of the debate sixty-six delegates from Bavaria, Baden, 
WUrtemburg, and Hesse formally declared their intention 
of being guided in the matter by their own state organiza- 
tions rather than by the national congress.'^ The halt at 

» Protokoll, Niirnberg, 1908, p. 294. 
« Ibid., p. 426. 



238 SOCIALISM 

this lowest stage on the slippery slope of parliamentary 
compromise will not be final. ^ 

The evolution of the party from the barren negation of 
millennial hopes to the positive striving to meet present 
needs is even more unmistakable when we turn from the 
forms to the ends of political action. What constructive 
tasks could a Marxian party advocate in the existing state? 
The authoritative answer is given in the second part of 
the Erfurt Programme containing the immediate demands 
of the party. Now the significant feature of this second 
part is that in spite of its preamble, "Setting out from 
these principles, the Social Democratic party of Germany 
demands immediately, etc.," it is not only not a deduction 
from the preceding principles but in flat contradiction to 
them. It contains a series of proposals, some of them social- 
istic in tendency, the majority merely the commonplaces 
of radicalism, proposals wise or unwise it may be, but the 
inevitable effect of which if successful would be to arrest 
the tendencies making for proletarian degradation and 
industrial chaos, and postpone the Social Revolution to the 
Greek Kalends.'^ 

Take, for example, the central issue of the betterment 
here and now of the lot of the working classes, whether 

^ After refraining from voting the budget for two years, the Baden 
sociaHsts supported the government in this crucial test in 1910. Their 
action was made the main subject of the Congress of Magdeburg; the 
strength of the reformist forces led at first to compromise, but the frank 
declaration of the Baden leaders that they would give no pledges for the 
future led the radical majority to reopen the question and to pass a reso- 
lution excluding from the party all who should vote for the budget in the 
future; the oflFenders of the present were left unscathed. 

* " After the Erf urter programme has sketched the inevitable develop- 
ment towards a future catastrophe, after the official party catechism has 
declared that a real radical betterment, not merely a surface improve- 
ment, is to be attained only through an out-and-out overthrow of the 
existing property and industrial relations, after all this the comprehensive 
second part of the programme does nothing else than block the desirable 
development by the much-scorned quackery of liberal and democratic 
social reforms." — Brunhuber, Das keutige Sozialdemokratie, p. 155. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 239 

by trade-union action, cooperative self-help, or by legis- 
lation such as is proposed in the second part of the Erfurt 
Programme, — abolition of the truck system, prohibition 
of child labor, the attainment of the eight-hour day, the 
extension of state insurance. To the believer in the iron 
law of wages of Lassalle or in Marx's vision of the cap- 
italist system inevitably and remorselessly grinding out 
surplus value and flinging ever more of the hapless work- 
ers into the industrial reserve army, no reform which left 
the control of industry in capitalist hands could be more 
than a trifling palliative, a mere patchwork tinkering at the 
shingles on the roof while the foundations were rotting 
to destruction. It was not only hopeless, it was dangerous, 
lulling the workers into a false content, weaning them 
away from the stern path of revolution. And it was worse 
than hopeless or dangerous, it was superfluous, for already 
the dawn of the new day was breaking: patience and 
sacrifice yet a little, and the proletarian hosts would enter 
the promised land. "Bourgeois society," declared Bebel in 
his great speech on party tactics at Erfurt, "is working so 
mightily towards its own downfall that we only need to 
wait the moment when we shall have to take up the power 
falling from its hands. Yes, I am convinced the realiza- 
tion of our ultimate goal is so near that there are few in this 
hall who will not live to see the day." ^ 

Few revolutionaries went to the extreme of out-and-out 
opposition to betterment. Reforms were permissible, it 
was held, in so far as they increased the fighting force of 
the working class and did not involve either in their 
attainment or in their working any reconciliation with the 
governing classes. ^ In practice, however, it is rather dif- 

» ProtoMl, Erfurt, p. 172. 

* Bebel, ibid., p. 273: " We must declare with the utmost emphasis that 
no positive advantage whatever can have any other end than making the 
party better equipped for the fray, to reach the great undivided goal 
the quicker and the more eagerly." 



240 SOCIALISM 

ficult to discern the psychological point at which better- 
ments produce the maximum of increase in the ability to 
fight without involving a slackening in the will to fight. 
The trade union was encouraged, rather patronizingly, 
chiefly as a recruiting-ground for party forces and as a 
means of keeping the class spirit alive in strike and strife. 
But it was maintained that the scope for trade-union action 
was after all limited, encroached upon both by state activ- 
ity and by capitalist combination, so that its role must be 
of less importance than the political action of the party. 
Consumers' cooperation, the most successful form, was 
scornfully rejected by Lassalle as powerless in any degree 
to better the condition of the worker; and by Marx as 
being a mere scratching of the economic surface. More 
countenance was afforded producers' cooperation, which 
was in fact the corner-stone of Lassalle's system, but can- 
tankerously this form of industrial organization has failed 
to achieve much success.^ Legislation to improve the 
working conditions met with more favor, though depre- 
cated by the radical wing as only incidental to the move- 
ment, ^ or shamefacedly defended as necessary bait. 

1 The negative attitude of the party is well summarized in the resolu- 
tion of the Congress of Berlin, 1892: "The party cannot approve the 
establishment of cooperative societies, except when designed to provide 
a living for comrades injured in the political or union struggle, or when 
serviceable for propaganda. ... If these different conditions are not 
present, the comrades of the party should oppose the establishment of 
cooperative societies; they should especially combat the opinion that 
the cooperatives are able to affect the conditions of capitalist production, 
to raise the condition of the working classes, or even to attenuate the 
class struggle of the workers in the political and trade-union field." — 
Protokoll, p. 220. 

* Bebel, at Erfurt: "Hitherto we have steadfastly declared we are 
going to bring in the social democratic society to take the place of the 
existing bourgeois society and its political superstructure, the existing 
state. To this end we seek to capture all weapons and advantages which 
may help us in the fight for that goal. The goal in its entirety is the main 
thing, and the rest incidental. How far we have come towards securing 
certain concessions, in the moment when we believe we are about to 
grasp the whole, that is a matter of secondary concern." — Protokoll, p. 274. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 241 

The logic of events has been too much for the logic of 
Marxism. Steadily the party has been forced in the direc- 
tion of laying more stress on the immediate reforms, and 
letting the goal recede more and more into the mists of the 
future. The unsuspected vitality of capitalism, its adapt- 
ability to new conditions, has compelled the abandonment 
of tactics natural when its speedy surrender to collectiv- 
ism was fondly hoped. Growing recognition of the un- 
soundness of much of the Marxian theory makes in the 
same direction. But the chief factor in the change has 
been the necessity of attracting and holding the masses of 
the workers by active championing of their present needs. 
The proletariat, untaught in the mysteries of Hegelian 
dialectic, has evidenced a crude objection to playing the 
role sketched in the party programme, of "growing aug- 
mentation of the insecurity of their existence, of misery, 
oppression, enslavement, debasement, and exploitation." 
It cannot be persuaded, once it has been roused to its 
wrongs and to its power, to sit with folded hands while the 
slow evolution of the ages works out the salvation of 
the coming time. Lassalle once declared that workingmen 
were no longer to be put off with checks on the Bank of 
Heaven ; neither, it appears, are they content with checks 
on the Bank of the future Social Democratic State. The 
trade unions, weak and subordinate in early days, have 
falsified all forecasts by surpassing the English unions in 
numbers and unified organization, and by approaching 
them closely in financial strength and in stress on mutual 
insurance. While the free unions — as opposed to the more 
conservative Christian, Independent, and Hirsch-Duncker 
organizations — which contain the majority of German 
unionists, have always been a source of strength to the 
party and intimately connected with it, they have in their 
new might insisted on the equal importance of economic 
action and on the necessity of directing the power of the 
party more and more to the attainment of immediate 



242 SOCIALISM 

reforms.^ The closer relations with the cooperative move- 
ment, consequent on the recent influx of thousands of 
party members into the once scorned consumers' cooper- 
ative societies, is profoundly influencing not only the co- 
operative but also the socialist movement. In the field of 
social legislation, the abandonment in 1903 of the earlier 
attitude of voting against the compulsory workingmen's 
insurance laws on the plea that they did not go far enough, 
without any radical change meantime in the legislation 
itself, is significant of the same tendency. In all directions 
as the "judgment day" forecast of capitalism is disproved 
by fact, the tendency is to accept the existing order, to 
strive to socialize it as it stands, to secure for the working 
class benefits here and now, step by step." 

The failure of the Marxian forecast involves further 
tactical consequences. The middle classes, the small shop- 
keepers, the small farmers, have not disappeared. The 
industrial working classes are still only a minority of the 
whole population. If political power is to be won, and 
German socialists are now fervent parliamentarians, allies 
must be sought elsewhere, especially among the peasants. 
But to the German peasant of the South or West, stub- 
bornly attached to his hereditary acres, the socialist pro- 

^ Cf. Sisypkvsarbrit oder positive Erfolge, Berlin, Generalkommission 
der Gewerkschaften ; a reply, by the editors of the Correspondenzblait, the 
official trade-union organ, to Kautsky's Der Weg zur Macht. 

^ Indirectly the socialists can claim a share of the credit for the estab- 
lishment of the workingmen's insurance legislation in which Germany 
has led the world. Cf . the statement of Bismarck in the Reichstag, Nov. 
26, 1884: "If there were no Social Democrats, and if there were not great 
numbers in fear of them, even the moderate advances which we have 
hitherto been able to make toward social reform would have been im- 
possible"; and the introductory passage of the Imperial Message placing 
the bill for insurance against accidents before the Reichstag, Nov. 17, 
1881: "We have already given expression to our conviction that the heal- 
ing of social wounds is to be sought not solely in the repression of Social 
Democratic agitation, but equally in positive provision for the welfare of 
the worker." — Schippel, Sozialdemokratisches Reichstag s-handhuch, pp. 
107, 117. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 24S 

gramme of the inevitable crushing-out of the small farm 
by the large estate offers little attraction. If his vote is 
to be won the socialist party must meet the agrarian party's 
bribe of tariff protection. ^ Following the lead of the 
opportunist South German agricultural states, the national 
Congress of Frankfort in 1894 appointed a commission to 
draw up an agrarian programme. The suggestions sub- 
mitted at Breslau the following year included extension 
of the national and municipal domain and a fair rent com- 
mission, state assumption of mortgages, state insurance, 
cheap state loans to the peasants, extension of state credit 
to associations for improving the soil. In spite of the sup- 
port of Bebel and Liebknecht, the report was roundly con- 
demned by the rank and file as quackery, as a flouting of 
the party programme, a flying in the face of economic 
destiny, an impossible and unworthy attempt to compete 
with the agrarian and anti-Semite parties on their own 
ground : some of the paragraphs of the commission's report 
were shown by Schippel to be borrowed word for word 
from a proposal of an ultra-reactionary Austrian minister 
of state. Why worry about the peasant's debts and his 
failing crops or falling prices? "The interest of the party 
demands that the peasants fall into the proletariat, how- 
ever unpleasant the proceeding may be for them." Since 
Marx has demonstrated that by the inevitable working 
of capitalist evolution the destiny of the peasant is to climb 
down rung after rung of the ladder of wretchedness, why 
give him artificial aid to hold him up? ^ Yet the victory of 

* " Without and against the good will of the rural population in a land 
like Germany, it is impossible to bring about a thoroughgoing social and 
political revolution. . . . The peasant will not be content either with 
empty criticism or with pointing to the future; like the workingman, he 
demands positive aids to the betterment of his conditions here and now." 
— Von Vollmar, ProtoMl, Frankfort. 1894, pp. 149, 150. 

* The amendment adopted by the congress by a vote of three to one 
ran: "The draft for an agrarian programme submitted by the agrarian 
commission should be rejected. This programme gives the peasant cause 



244 SOCIALISM 

the revolutionary wing has not proved lasting. While the 
party has never formally reversed the Breslau decision, 
the tendency has been to lay more and more stress on 
"peasant-fishing." The need of votes — the party must 
go forward or go back — the example of socialist parties 
elsewhere, the growing conviction that the transition to 
the better society of the future must begin now and not 
after a judgment day collapse, make it necessary to cham- 
pion the cause of all classes with grievances to heal, 
whether peasant or shopkeeper or small ofiiceholder. 

While the German Social Democratic party is still in the 
main composed of working-class members, it has failed to 
maintain its purely proletarian class-struggle character. 
The party which declares in its programme that the eman- 
cipation of mankind from capitalism must be the work of 
the working classes alone, sends to parliament among its 
leaders "solicitors, authors, millionaires, merchants, uni- 
versity lecturers and capitalists." ^ The rank and file, it has 
been conclusively shown, include over half a million voters 
from other than proletarian strata. ^ The party has in fact 
become the medium by which discontent in any quarter 
with the political or economic situation may most effect- 
ively be expressed. Its practical activity is directed more 
and more towards protesting against the Hohenzollern- 
Junker-Bureaucratic dominance, toward demands for 
democratic reform. 

to hope for the betterment of his condition, and the buttressing of his 
private property; it implies that the cultivation of the soil under the 
existing social order is a matter concerning the proletariat, whereas the 
cultivation of the soil as well as the interests of industry, under the regime 
of private property in the means of production, are interests of the pro- 
prietors of the means of production, of the exploiters of the proletariat. 
Further, the draft of the agrarian programme confers new powers on the 
class state and thereby increases the difficulties of the class struggle of 
the proletariat; and finally the project lays on the capitalist state duties 
which can only be accomplished by a state in which the proletariat 
has conquered political power." — Protokoll, Breslau, p. 104. 

* Brunhuber, op. cit., p. 149. * Archivfur Sozialmssenschaft, xx, p. 507. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEIVIENT 245 

Consider any current election manifesto, the report of 
the Reichstag fraction to the annual congress, or those sec- 
tions of the second part of the Erfurt Programme to which 
reference has not already been made. There is little w hich 
is not to-day advocated by radical parties elsewhere. Take 
the political demands. Proportional representation may 
be urged by a scattered minority of any hue, socialist or 
anti-socialist. The opposition offered to the personal 
government of Kaiser and Chancellor commends itself to 
all adherents of party government and cabinet respons- 
ibility. The demand for two-year parliaments may be 
unwise, but it is an institution which has prevailed for 
over a century in the popular House in the United States, 
The referendum and initiative, expedients serviceable, if 
anywhere, in countries lacking cabinet government, are 
advocated not only by radicals but by conservatives of the 
English Spectator type, who imagine that the voice of 
the people when heard clear and unconfused wall make for 
moderation. Compulsory primary education meets little 
opposition; whether it should be secular depends on one's 
theological rather than on one's economic views; and many 
will grant that it should be free who will find no overwhelm- 
ing need for the free legal and medical aid next demanded. 
Criminal appeal, indemnification of persons wrongly pro- 
secuted, popular election of judges, these are proposals 
which have little connection with the collectivist common- 
wealth, and the advocacy of the abolition of capital pun- 
ishment must be set down to an unlucky verbal ambiguity 
or to a survival of Utopian humanitarianism.^ Graduated 
income, property and inheritance taxes, while fre- 
quently dubbed socialistic by men unwilling to bear their 
share of the state's burdens, are not so in essence, though 
they might be in extreme application. The opposition to 

* "This demand is a dictate of reason and humanity and therefore 
a demand of the Social Democracy." — "Ziele und Wege,"ed. Braun, 
p. 30. 



246 SOCIALISM 

protection, and especially to food taxes, which has helped 
and will continue to help the party with the millions of 
consumers groaning under the agrarian yoke, may be in 
line with the interests of the masses; it is, however, as 
open to the protectionist as to the freetrader to quote the 
sanction of socialist principles for his policy.^ 

To pass to another much debated point. Religion, the 
Erfurt Programme declares, is a private matter, conse- 
quently all state contributions to church purposes are to 
be abolished, and public education secularized. The atti- 
tude of the party to religion has been a matter of long 
debate. On the face of it there seems no reason why a 
believer in the collective ownership of the means of pro- 
duction should not also be a believer in Christianity, or in 
Mohammedanism. Yet as a matter of fact in Europe 
organized socialism and organized Christianity have long 
been at daggers drawn. The opposition of the churches, 
especially the Catholic Church, is due not merely to the 
theoretical opposition of believers in private property and 
the practical opposition of holders of private property, nor 
to the special concern with the justice which socialist 
expropriation would flout, but to the unwillingness to 
accept as satisfactory a "neutrality" which even if ob- 
served has as its corollaries abolition of state aid to ecclesi- 
astical purposes and of ecclesiastical control of schools. 
The Marxian socialist, on the other hand, believes that the 
churches have used their influence to benumb the masses 
into content. His radicalism in one sphere makes ready 
the ground for the radicalism current in another sphere, 
just as the vegetarian is more apt than other men to be 
an anti- vaccinationist or New Thought adherent. He is 
a believer in a materialistic interpretation of history and 
life which leads to estimating religion in terms of eco- 
nomics. He is intimate with the anti-theological views of 

* Cf. the very able Schippel-Kautsky debate, Stuttgart Congress, 1898, 
Protokoll, pp. 172-205. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 247 

the scientists whom he consults to buttress his theories of 
social evolution. There results therefore a disbelief in the 
dogmas and institutions of Christianity which finds ex- 
pression in countless utterances, from Bebel's declaration 
in the Reichstag in 1881 that "in politics we profess re- 
publicanism, in economics socialism, in religion atheism," 
down to the latest Christmas parody in the Vorwdrts.^ 
At the same time tactical exigencies demand the cessation 
of active opposition if the suffrages of the Catholic work- 
man and the Catholic peasant are to be won. "We must," 
declared the Catholic and opportunist von Vollmar, out- 
lining an agrarian plan of campaign, "we must put the fine 
words of our programme into practice and maintain ab- 
solute neutrality. We must do away entirely with the equi- 
vocation of declaring that religion is a private matter and 
at the same time continuing the tactics of base and stupid 
priest-eating and beating on the drum of science which 
have done the party so much harm." ^ The equivocation 
still is manifest; the party oflScially protests neutrality, 
while the official publishing houses issue anti-religious 
pamphlets by the score. 

One more subject may be mentioned which has always 
bulked large in the socialist discussion — the attitude to 
patriotism and to military and naval armaments. To the 
socialist of a generation ago patriotism was a bourgeois 
prejudice: the proletarian could have no country. The 
lines must be drawn horizontally between classes, not 
vertically between countries. Capitalist enterprise had 
made the world one common market; the working class 
of the world must make it one common battlefield. War, 
and the huge military and naval preparations of armed 

' See manifold quotations in Cathrein, Socialism, translated by 
Gettlemann, pp. 204-223, and especially in Ming's The Characteristics 
and the Religion of Modern Socialism, a study from the Catholic stand- 
point written with more than the usual fairness and knowledge. 

» Congress of Frankfort, 1894, Protokoll, p. 146. 



248 SOCIALISM 

peace, have been even more strongly opposed, not merely 
on humanitarian grounds, but because of the reactionary 
results of external warfare on internal politics, the unfair 
share of the burden and sacrifice of life that falls on the 
working class, the use of the army to overawe strikes, and 
the general support received by the capitalist state from 
the sword. The German Social Democracy is still honor- 
ably distinguished by its efforts to maintain international 
good will, but even on this point it has undergone a change. 
It may not be less international than before, but it is more 
national. Lassalle has conquered Marx. The German 
socialist, fatherlandless fellow though his Emperor has 
called him, has been infected by the exuberant patriotism 
of his fellow citizens. He is still on the extreme left of 
German sentiment, still opposed to naval expansion, and 
Weltpolitik,^ but he is much more in sympathy with the 
ambitions of the rulers of the Fatherland than were the 
men of the last generation who gladly went to prison for 
their opposition to the Franco-Prussian War. Distinc- 
tions are made between defensive and aggressive warfare, 
between war with reactionary Russia and war with demo- 
cratic France. Should we not so far abandon our attitude 
of no compromise with militarism as to vote supplies for 
the substitution of less conspicuous uniforms, and save 
thousands of proletarian lives in the next war? asked 
Bebel in 1890.^ And for better guns ? deduced Heine in his 
famous cannon speech in 1898. May not the existing army 
be modified, be developed into the democratic citizen-mili- 
tia the programme demands ? continued Schippel the same 
yeftr, only to find, however, his party unwilling to be hurried 
at his pace and passing a condemnatory resolution.^ The 
length the party has traveled from its starting-point was 

' Cf. election address of German Social Democrats, 1907; in Ensor, 
p. 369. 

^ Congress of Halle, Protokoll, p. 104. 
' Congress of Hanover, Protokoll, p. 68. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 249 

revealed in the International Congress at Stuttgart in 
1907 by the strong hostility offered by the German leaders 
to the French programme of war on war.^ It is true the 
dashing assaults of Herve compelled the German repre- 
sentatives to agree to a resolution much more radical than 
any one anticipated, and that since the congress Karl 
Liebknecht and others have carried on a mild version of 
the Herve campaign. Yet the strong current runs in the 
other direction. The heavy losses in representation suffered 
by the socialists in the khaki election of 1907 led to many 
fervent protestations of patriotism and readiness to shoul- 
der a gun, " in defensive warfare." A speech made by Com- 
rade Noske in the Reichstag was especially compromising; 
at the Congress of Essen, held a month after the Inter- 
national Congress of Stuttgart, it was sharply criticised by 
such unyielding radicals as Ledebour, Kautsky, Karl 
Liebknecht, Stadthagen, and Clara Zetkin, but, at Bebel's 
instance, the vote of censure was rejected by an overwhelm- 
ing majority.^ "The relative importance of the national 
and international ideals in German socialist professions," 
declares the most objective and clearsighted student of 
socialism, *'has been reversed since the seventies."^ And 
he continues, showing that this shift of attitude is all of a 
piece with the change on other points, "The Social Demo- 
crats have come to be German patriots first and socialists 
second, which comes to saying that they are a political 
party working for the maintenance of the existing order, 
with modifications. They are no longer a party of revolu- 
tion, but of reform, though the measure of reform which 
they demand greatly exceeds the Hohenzollern limit of 
tolerance. They are now as much, if not more, in touch 



1 Proiokoll, Stuttgart, pp. 64-70, 81-105. 

2 Protokoll, Essen, pp. 226-265 ; cf. Michels, " Le Patriotisme des 
socialistes allemands et le Congres d'Essen," Le mouvement socialiste, no. 
194, pp. 5-13. 

' Veblen, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xxi, pp. 320-321. 



250 SOCIALISM 

with the ideas of English liberalism than with those of 
revolutionary Marxism." 

This gradual movement toward acceptance of the exist- 
ing order has not been shared in equal degree by all sections 
of the party. Each change in tactics, as has been indicated, 
has come as the result of vigorous conflict within the party. 
Revolutionary and reformist tendencies have been opposed 
from the outset, the personnel always shifting, the point at 
issue changing with the changing time, but the opposition 
never ceasing to exist. It would not be correct to say that 
the revolutionary wing laid stress only on the far goal and 
rejected all immediate betterments, and that the reformist 
wing lost sight of the goal in the preoccupation with nearest 
needs, but in greater or less degree differences of emphasis, 
approaching these extremes, mark the long debates over 
the party's tactics, and especially so since the close of the 
nineteenth century. From the Congress of Stuttgart in 
1898 to the Congress of Dresden in 1903 the party was rent 
by controversy on questions of theory, by the struggle 
between the heterodox, led by Bernstein, and the orthodox, 
led by Kautsky, as to whether the Marxian forecast of 
capitalist development had been borne out by time. In the 
latter year the revisionist doctrines were overwhelmingly 
rejected; the party refused to make public confession of the 
abandonment of the creed it had so long defended.^ The 
temporary success of the Russian revolutionists gave new 
life to the wing which rejected compromise; the Congress 
of Jena, in 1905, even coquetted with the general strike, 
so far as waged for political ends, but the Congress of 
Mannheim in the following year yielded to trade-union 
opinion and watered down the Jena resolution. In recent 

1 " It was in vain that Bernstein called upon the Social Democracy 'to 
dare to appear what it was in reality — a democratic, socialistic party of 
reform.' . . . Theories always have a more hardy life than tactics; they 
survive, in the form of sterile and empty formulas, the facts which had 
given them birth." — Boris Kritchewsky, Le mouvement socialiste, no. 
203, p. 287. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 251 

years reformist effort has been concentrated on practice 
rather than on theory : the controversies have turned on 
the betterment activities of trade union and cooperative, 
on electoral alliances and parliamentary cooperation with 
bourgeois parties, on voting for or against the budget. 
The revisionist theorists, the trade-union and cooperative 
leaders, the South German state leaders and the majority 
of the Reichstag deputies have acted in concert, though as 
yet, in spite of many gains, they have not been able to 
muster, in the party congresses, forces sufficient to outvote 
the radical rank and file, who have their chief fortresses in 
Saxony and Prussia. 

The future of German Social Democracy appears to be- 
long to the opportunist wing. The fundamental fact in the 
political situation is, that parliamentary victory means ob- 
taining a popular majority, that this majority cannot be 
secured by the votes the socialists can hope to get from the 
urban working classes alone, and that the consequent neces- 
sity of securing, directly or by alliance, the support of other 
sections of the nation, must exercise a determining influence 
on the tactics and the programme of the party. Whether 
the party will maintain its attitude of trust in parliamentary 
action, as present appearances indicate, and, if it does, at 
what pace and with what baitings and backsets it will ad- 
vance along the path of democratic reform, only the future 
can unshroud. Commercial depression at home or war 
abroad would make for revolutionary revival, prosperity 
and peace for reconcilement. The maintenance of the ex- 
isting three-class suffrage in Prussia would keep Prussian 
socialism doctrinaire and uncompromising; a broad fran- 
chise, and the power that would follow it, would have on the 
socialists of the North the sobering effect they have had on 
the socialists of the South. The introduction of responsible 
government and the consequent greater cooperation be- 
tween the different factions in the Reichstag would be even 
more effective in strengthening the reformist tendency. 



252 SOCIALISM 

Dissatisfaction with personal government by a Kaiser rul- 
ing by divine right has greatly stimulated the movement 
for cabinet government; the action of the "blue-black 
bloc" — the alliance of Conservative and Centre — in 
throwing the burden of new taxation on the shoulders least 
able to bear it has made the parties of the Left, the Na- 
tional Liberals, — especially the Young Liberal wing, who 
seek to restore German Liberalism to its historic demo- 
cratic position, — the Radicals, now united, and the Social 
Democrats, realize their common danger and their common 
ground, and has made the suggestion of an alliance from 
Bassermann to Bebel seem more plausible than at any pre- 
vious stage in Germany's development. An alliance be- 
tween forces which for a generation have been so strongly 
opposed could be brought about only under great pressure, 
but some degree of cooperation with the parties of the Left 
for their common ends is evidently a necessity of the 
immediate future. 

Every country gets the socialists it deserves, from the 
bomb-throwing revolutionaries of autocratic Russia to the 
gas-and-water Fabians of democratic Britain. For all his 
cosmopolitanism the socialist is unable to escape the mould- 
ing force of national environment. The French socialist 
movement, at one with the German development in many 
fundamental points, bears the mark of wide differences in 
historical antecedents and national temperament as well 
as in economic and political conditions. 

The French socialist movement has been profoundly 
affected by the revolutionary tradition which is its herit- 
age. The dramatic days of the overthrow of feudalism, the 
barricades of '48, and the fires of '71 form a background 
which finds no parallel across the Rhine. "A working- 
man's '93" is the ideal which is never far from the mind 
of the class-conscious proletarian. His impetuous courage, 
his idealism, his thoroughgoing logic, his chafing at dis- 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 253 

cipline, have made the French movement at once more 
spectacular than the German, and less efficient, at least as 
the drill sergeant rates efficiency. The economic environ- 
ment has had its influence. France is preeminently the 
land of the peasant and the artisan, the land where in 
spite of a steady advance of large-scale production, espe- 
cially in the north, the small industry still holds its ground 
the firmest and the personal equation counts for most, the 
land of the most even and universal distribution of wealth, 
the land, in brief, where the Marxian forecast of capitalistic 
evolution finds tardiest fulfillment. Important, too, is the 
political environment. The survivals of feudal privilege, 
the powerlessness of the Reichstag, the restricted suffrage 
of Prussia, which weaken the force and strengthen the 
intr'+nsigeance of German social democracy, find little 
paraHel in a land where republican equality, universal and 
equal suffrage, and a central parliament in control of the 
cabinet executive open the path to power and to reconcil- 
iation to the state. In France, however, as in Germany, 
the group system makes against the consolidation of all the 
forces of the Left. 

Corresponding in some degree to this difference in 
environment, expressing and accentuating it, is the differ- 
ence in theoretical inheritance. A strong idealist strain 
has persisted throughout the whole French socialist 
movement, surviving from the humanitarianism of the 
eighteenth century and the Utopianism which continued 
that tradition. The petty bourgeois anarchism of Proud- 
hon, itself a variant of Utopianism, which permeated the 
thought of radical France in the fifties and sixties, and 
formed the chief theoretical equipment of the French sec- 
tion of the International, has continued to exert a power- 
ful influence. Then in the seventies the class war and 
economic fatalism of Marxism entered France, and made 
a second German conquest, especially in the industrial 
north. 



254 SOCIALISM 

The socialist movement which developed under these 
various influences of theoretical and of racial and eco- 
nomic and political environment has been marked by 
little of the discipHned unity of the German record. Each 
tendency has been embodied in a distinct party, fighting 
for its own hand. The many able leaders the movement 
has called forth have found it difficult to sacrifice their 
cherished principles and their personal ambitions on the 
altar of harmony. Faction has fought against faction, on 
the platform and at the polls, — it is the shades, not the 
colors, that hate one another, the French proverb runs, — 
and union has been patched up in one direction only to 
be offset by a split in some other section of this unluckily 
fissiparous movement. 

Yet underlying all the shifts of faction and the antagon- 
ism of individuals a broad general tendency may be dis- 
cerned. In the main the experience of the French socialists 
is the experience of the German socialists in the accentu- 
ated form to be expected from the more democratic 
environment. Forty years of discussion and action have 
shown the impossibility of a strong movement maintain- 
ing the barren and irreconcilable attitude of the class- 
struggle fatalist. Given the first step in compromise with 
existing society — the participation in politics — and 
there follow more or less slowly growing stress on positive 
action here and now, gradual loss of the exclusively prole- 
tarian character, increasing acceptance of the state. It is 
true there continue to be within the movement, strife of 
radical and moderate, degrees of reconciliation to the 
existing order. In the gradual slide down the slope of 
parliamentarism the Left still keeps relatively Left. The 
history of the political movement is the record at once 
of the conflict between revolutionary and reformist tend- 
encies, and of the gradual drift toward the reformist 
attitude. This, however, is not the complete record of the 
socialist movement in France. The chief development of 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 255 

recent years has been a reaction against parliamentary 
compromise, a revival of revolutionary zeal finding ex- 
pression not in political but in economic action — the 
growth, namely, of syndicalism. 

Until of recent years economic activity played small 
part in socialist strategy. The cooperative method of 
socializing capitalism was looked on with special disfavor 
by the socialists of the straiter observance. Profit-sharing, 
an offshoot of Utopian preaching, was regarded as a 
bourgeois snare, and the French development of producers' 
cooperation and the English development of consumers' 
cooperation met neutrality at best. The trade union was 
regarded with more favor, and socialists of the different 
groups took an active part in initiating and extending union 
organization. The great majority of French socialists, 
however, regarded it as decidedly a subordinate factor, 
helpful not so much through its own action as through its 
aid to the political party. The secondary role which the 
Guesdists, or orthodox Marxists, accorded the union is 
sufficiently revealed in the official recommendation to the 
members of the party to join a union — in order "to 
spread the doctrine of socialism and recruit adherents for 
the programme and policy of the party." ^ The trade 
unions, on the other hand, were too weak to exercise 
important influence on the political movement. The 
persistence of small industry, the hostility of cramping 
legislation, the tendency to division and sectionalism, 
the reluctance of the average workman to undergo the 
trouble and expense of permanent organization,^ long made 
French unionism a negligible quantity compared with the 
English or even the German movement. 

^ Compte-rendu, Congress of the parti ouvrier frangais; Lille, 1890. 

2 Cf. the comment of an English trade unionist at an International 
Congress: "When it's a question of holding up hands to vote on resolu- 
tions our French friends are always ready, but when it's a question of 
putting hands into pockets they are not to be found." — Cited in Vander- 
velde. La Grhe GSnSrale, p. 28. 



256 SOCIALISM 

Economic weapons disregarded, the field was divided 
by the advocates of force and the advocates of political 
action. At the extreme left, reckoned by opposition to 
parliamentary activity, stood the anarchists, so far to the 
left, indeed, as to be disowned by the majority of socialists. 
It is true the anarchist has as many points of antagonism 
to the orthodox socialist as of agreement with him: while 
he is the heir of the Utopian socialist in the stress laid on 
abstract principles of justice and fraternity, in the appeal 
to all classes indiscriminately, in the distrust of large-scale 
production, these are just the points in which the Utopian 
socialist differed most widely from Marxism, with its 
stress on economic rather than ideal forces and its exclu- 
sively proletarian appeal. And while, again, anarchists 
like Bakunin looked forward to a coUectivist organization 
of free society and Kropotkin finds his ideal in communism, 
the persistence of individualist tendencies among the 
anarchists of the Tucker school makes it impossible to 
identify socialism and anarchism in their forecast of the 
future.^ So far as Marx and Engels and their earlier follow- 
ers are concerned, the claim of the anarchist to kinship 
rests mainly in their common repudiation of the state, 
their expectation that it would "die out." But while Marx 
sanctioned participation in politics as a means of securing 
control of the state and inducing it to perform harikari, 
the anarchist rigidly abstains from any compromising 
share in political activity and especially opposes piecemeal 
reforms, whether as sustenance or as bait. Persuasion is 
his sole tactics. Paradoxically, to the wing of the anarch- 
ists most in public gaze, persuasion and force have come 
to be near allied, through adherence to the cry of "propa- 
ganda by deed," the policy of throwing bombs into public 
gatherings and striking daggers into the hearts of empresses 
in order to attract the attention of a busy and blase world. 
This policy of advertising by dynamite has not found 
* Cf. Eltzbacher, Anarchism, translated by Byington, p. 283. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 257 

many adherents: "It would be possible," declared Lieb- 
knecht with rhetorical exaggeration, "to pack all the 
anarchists in Europe in a couple of police wagons." So 
far as France is concerned, the anarchists, distinctly repu- 
diated and excommunicated by the socialists of political 
tendencies, counted for little in the social movement until 
the rise of syndicalism gave them new audience. 

Among the more strictly socialist groups the Blanquists 
were distinguished as the special inheritors of the revolu- 
tionary tradition. They preached the gospel of the re- 
volutionary minority. The new society must come by 
the initiative of a bold, well-disciplined general staff, who 
would place themselves at the head of the sluggish masses, 
snatch victory out of chaos, and proclaim the dictatorship 
of the proletariat. Universal suffrage was but quackery, 
it would involve reconciliation with bourgeois society, 
compel the abdication of the revolutionary minority who 
knew their owti mind, in favor of the hopelessly docile 
majority, deluded into moderation by the wiles of privilege 
and the blindness of ignorance; the majority must be 
saved from themselves. Political action was necessary, 
but only as a means of revolutionary agitation, of organ- 
ization of the elite. After the death of Blanqui, and 
under the leadership of Vaillant and Sembat, this group, 
known in its later years as the Revolutionary Socialist 
party, became more and more impregnated with Marxism 
and closely associated with the Guesdist faction. This 
Guesdist group, the French Labor party, has been for 
a generation the official exponent of simon-pure Marxian 
doctrine in France. Jules Guesde, Communard refugee, 
returning to Paris in 1876 to find the radical working-class 
movement still feeling the sobering effects of the Versailles 
repression of the Commune, succeeded by personal pro- 
paganda, newspaper agitation, and the advertisement of 
police prosecution in inducing the Labor Congress which 
met at Marseilles in 1879 to take its stand on a collectivist 



258 SOCIALISM 

platform written in large part by the hand of Marx himself. 
Shedding the cooperative elements on the one hand and 
the anarchists on the other, the new party declared its 
faith in emancipation by political action, but action of the 
orthodox negative type. Rigid in its revolutionary faith, 
looking forward to the expropriation of the robber rich at 
one fell blow, hostile to all compromise with the bourgeois 
state or bourgeois parties, guarding against heresies by a 
highly centralized organization, the Guesdist party has long 
been the backbone of French socialism. Among its leaders 
it has counted Guesde, Lafargue, the son-in-law of Marx, 
Deville, Delory, and Roussel. Almost at the outset of its 
career, however, its all-or-nothing tendencies proved in- 
supportable to a section of its members and in 1882 the 
opportunist element drew off to form the Federation of 
Socialist Workingmen, more briefly designated Possibilists, 
or, from their leader, Broussists. The Possibilists, as their 
name implied, believed in attaining the collectivist goal 
by easy stages, reaping along the march what results were 
immediately possible. Foes of centralization, they laid 
stress on the autonomy of the commune and the extension 
of its public services. Factionalism had not yet reached 
its limit. In 1891 a split took place in the Possibilist 
party, this time to the left instead of to the right; the new 
group, the Revolutionary Socialist Labor party, or AUe- 
manists, were, however, never so important in numerical 
force as in the fact that with their advocacy of the gen- 
eral strike they foreshadowed the development of the later 
anti-parliamentary movement. Finally, at the extreme 
right of the movement were found upholders of idealism 
like Benoit Malon, Rouanet, Fourniere, and Renard, and 
at a later stage a group of independent socialists which 
included Jaures, Millerand, Viviani, Briand, and Gerault- 
Richard, men of bourgeois antecedents, of practical 
capacity, and of opportunist leanings, 
The clash of principle between these shifting groups and 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 259 

the drift of the whole movement towards pariiamentarisrn 
may be gathered sufficiently by stating the attitude taken 
on four or five of the principal questions of tactics which 
have arisen. Late in the eighties the spectre of General 
Boulanger on his black charger came to trouble France. 
Backed by monarchists, clericals, militarists, he threatened 
the safety of the republic. Should socialists rally to the 
defense of the republic, or leave it to its fate? At once the 
Possibilists, and members of the unattached Right, such as 
Malon and Rouanet, pronounced in favor of alliance with 
the radical forces to repel reaction. The republic and the 
liberties it gave must be saved, or future progress was 
blocked. The socialist should follow the traditional policy 
of siding with the middle class against aristocracy. For 
the sake of the republic of the future, the party should 
" forget for an instant the sixteen years during which the 
bourgeoisie had betrayed the hopes of the people." ^ Not 
so the Guesdist and Blanquist stalwarts. The true socialist 
had other tasks than preserving bourgeois republics. To 
him the struggle was merely a quarrel between two fac- 
tions of the master class for the privilege of picking pro- 
letarian bones. There was but one enemy," capitalist feu- 
dalism, in whose interest opportunist and radical govern 
to-day, in whose interest Boulanger would govern and 
flash his sabre to-morrow."^ While, therefore, in the elec- 
tions of 1889 the Possibilists threw their votes to the joint 
radical candidates, the Guesdists and Blanquists set up 
independent candidates, regardless of consequences. 

In 1889 the combined socialist forces polled only fifty 
thousand votes. Disunion and the intransigeance of the 
majority prevented wide success. Yet slowly socialist 
deputies were filtering into the chamber, and slowly the 
taste of parliamentary success brought craving for more. 

1 Manifeste de la FMeration des Travailleurs socialistes de France: 
Zevaes, Le Socialisme en France, p. 268. 

* Manifeste du farti ouvrier frauQais : Zevaes, p. 270. 



260 SOCIALISM 

Even the Guesdists could not resist the temptation tc 
angle for votes. Following the Possibilist lead they drew 
up in 1891 a municipal programme, offering free meals, 
clothes, and shoes for school-children, free medical and 
legal advice, an eight-hour day on municipal contracts, the 
abolition of the octroi tax on food-stuffs, and other attract- 
ive "palliatives." Victory in 1892 in Marseilles, Toulon, 
Roubaix, and many other important towns, proved the 
attractiveness of such bait, even though reaction quickly 
followed on actual experience of socialist administration. 
Encouraged by this step in opportunism, the Guesdists 
turned to the peasant. If the party was to conquer by the 
ballot a majority of voters must be won, and in France no 
majority could be had from the city workers alone. Yet 
in the country the prospects for a campaign on strict 
revolutionary principles were anything but encouraging. 
The rural proletariat, the workers for wage, were only the 
minority of the rural population and in large part proof 
against discontent by the very hopelessness of their lot.* 
The peasant proprietors and renters, who formed the bulk 
of the population, were hopelessly individual in their 
mentality, not to be seduced from the little farms in which 
their very personality was merged by the most glowing 

* The leading socialist authority on agrarian matters, M. Compere- 
Morel, admits the failure of twenty years of socialist agitation to reach 
this element: "The rural proletariat is divided into two very distinct 
classes. There are first the workers who live elsewhere than on the farm, 
with their little cottage and corner of land. These are the sound elements 
and from them we win recruits. But the other class, the enslaved domes- 
tics, the drovers, the stable-boys, the shepherds and cowherds, who are 
attached to the farm like the dog to his kennel, these, I regret to say, 
are hopelessly dull, their intellectual level is extremely low, . . . people 
incapable of any mental enjoyment, soaked in ignorance and in alcohol, 
condemned to go from church to inn and from inn to church (loud ap- 
plause). We have many a time tried to win these farm domestics to our 
ideas, but with what painful results! Capitalist exploitation has made 
of the semen human cattle." — Le socialisme et les paysans, 1909, p. 21. 

The confession is a significant comment on "the worse the better" 
tactics. 



THE MODERN SOCMLIST MOVEMENT 261 

visions of the huge collectivist farms of the future. Con- 
trary to the forecast, they were not disappearing before 
the competition of the large estate; the sociahst might 
declare that the peasant survived only by unremitting 
toil which meant slow suicide, or that the exploitation by 
the middleman and the mortgagee made his independence 
illusory; the fact remained that the peasant was neither 
to be forced out by economic evolution nor to be drawn 
out by socialist persuasion. Yet his vote must be had. 
Principles had to give way to tactics. At the Congress of 
Marseilles in 1892 a programme was drawn up demanding 
for the day-workers a minimum wage and pension funds, 
for the renters a fair rent commission and the Ulster right; 
for the peasant proprietors communal provision of machin- 
ery and fertilizers, free instruction in agriculture and 
experimental farms. It was undeniable that these reforms 
were largely imitated from bourgeois party programmes, 
and that, if secured, they would strengthen individual 
property-rights. It was vain for socialist apologists to 
declare that their belief in the eventual disappearance of 
the small farmer did not compel them to hasten the pro- 
cess; true, but it forbade their blocking and staying that 
process, preserving a form of production which in many 
cases might not indeed involve exploitation of any but the 
farmer himself, but which in socialist theory was unsocial 
and economically backward. The orthodox socialist atti- 
tude toward this falling from grace is clearly evidenced by 
the overwhelming rejection by the German party in 1895 
of similar proposals, and by the express denunciation of 
Engels.^ 

' "The development of capitalism is destroying the small landed 
property beyond hope of redemption. Our party is clear on that point; 
it is not, however, called on to hasten the process by its own efforts. There 
is no objection to be made on the ground of principle to properly chosen 
means of making this inevitable ruin less burdensome for the peasants, 
but if you do anything further, if your aim is to uphold the peasant per- 
manently, then in my opinion you are striving for what is economically 



262 SOCIALISM 

This taking agrarian programme, the Panama scandals, 
the newspaper activities of Millerand and the campaigning 
of Jaures and other recent recruits cooperated to secure 
unprecedented success in the elections of 1893. Fifty 
socialist deputies of various hues were returned. The effect 
of this success in abating revolutionary zeal was counter- 
acted for some time by the lack of temptation from the 
bourgeois side. One Right Centre ministry after another, 
the Dupuy, Casimir-Perier, Ribot, and Meline administra- 
tions, took up a position of distinct hostility to the social- 
ists: only in the brief administration of Leon Bourgeois 
was opportunity given for cooperation. It was not until 
1897 that the next crucial issue was raised, when Zola's 
famous J' accuse letter in defense of Dreyfus appeared, and 
the strife over the guilt or innocence of the accused Jewish 
army captain widened into a conflict between the pro- 
gressive and the reactionary forces for mastery of the 
state. The situation facing the socialist party was much 
the same as in the Boulanger case, and the same division 
of opinion reappeared. 

To the militant class-conscious Guesdist or Blanquist 
the only possible attitude was rigid abstention. What had 
the socialist to do with a struggle between rival capitalist 
factions, between clerical and Jew, rivals of a da3^ glutton- 
ous guests who quarreled at the banquet? His part must be 
to press home the lesson of the disgraceful affair, to prove 
bourgeois bankruptcy, to turn against the social order the 
scandals of this military Panama as they had utilized 
the financial Panama. Must the proletariat forget the in- 
iquities of which they were the daily victims, the monstrous 
injuries wrought day in and day out against their own 



impossible, you are sacrificing principles and becoming reactionary. . . . 
[I conjectured] that our French friends would stand alone in the socialist 
world in their attempt to buttress up forever not merely the small 
peasant proprietor but also the small renter who exploits other workers." 
— Engels, cited in Protolcoll, Frankfort, 1894, p. 151, n. 



THE MODERN SOCLVLIST MOVEMENT 263 

wives and children, and the moment that a staff captain, 
a rich man who had of his own free will chosen the worst 
of careers, is served with his own class justice, abandon 
all to rush to his defense? The socialist party could not 
turn aside to save an individual victim; it had a class to 
save, humanity to save.^ 

To the men of the Right, these tactics appeared un- 
worthy of the party and the crisis. If to Guesde all ideals 
wrought out before the year One of the Marxian era were of 
little importance, to Jaures the conception of socialism as 
merely the latest stage in the long evolution of democracy 
was ever present. If the bourgeois state had proved its 
moral bankruptcy, press that truth home, but snatch for 
the socialists the honor of defending the liberty and just- 
ice the bourgeois parties could no longer protect. It was 
not the rehabilitation of an individual that was at stake, 
but the preservation of the republic. It was impossible 
to lump all the anti-socialist forces together as equally re- 
actionary. "True," declared Jaures, "society to-day is 
divided into capitalists and proletarians, but at the same 
time it is menaced by the aggressive revival of all the 
forces of the past, of feudal barbarism, of the whole power 
of the church, and it is the duty of socialists, when the 
liberty of the republic is in danger, when intellectual liberty 
is in jeopardy, when freedom of conscience is threatened, 
when the old prejudices are being resurrected which revive 
once more the race hatreds and the atrocious religious 
feuds of the centuries that are gone, it is the duty of the 
socialist proletariat to march shoulder to shoulder with 
that section of the bourgeoisie which has no wish to revert 
to the past." ^ 

The sequel of the Dreyfus case and of the manful service 
the Jaures section performed was the famous Millerand 

* Cf. Les Deux Metkodes, Conference par Jaures et Guesde, Lille, 1900; 
and Declaration du parti ouvrier frangais, 1898, in Zevaes, op. cit., p. 286. 

* Les Deux Metkodes, p. 4. 



«fl4 SOCIALISM 

dispute.^ If a socialist party might champion the radical 
republic, why should not a socialist accept the reward of 
a post in the radical ministry? Millerand's action in 1899 
in taking the portfolio of Commerce in the Waldeck- 
Rousseau ministry of republican defense was the logical 
next step in the opportunist path. If the socialists had 
power, why shirk responsibility? True, they must act as 
a revolutionary class party, never forgetting the final goal, 
but they could not act in a vacuum; they must penetrate 
every fissure of bourgeois society, must participate in 
administration, must show they could manage affairs as 
well as make fine speeches, must lay in the present the 
foundations of the future state. The presence of a socialist 
in the ministry, the members of the Right wing contended, 
was a striking testimony to the progress of socialism and 
a pledge of progressive action. Guesde and Vaillant, how- 
ever, while admitting the offer of a post was an unwilling 
compliment to socialist power, held that its acceptance was 
a scandalous desertion of the principles of class war. The 
socialist heaven could not be entered until after the judg- 
ment day of capitalism.^ The socialist whose aim was 
social revolution could not share power with the bourgeois 
whose aim was social conservation. And would power 
really be shared ? A single socialist in the capitalist min- 
istry would be only a dupe, a hostage; his entry would 
no more signify the overthrow of capitalism than the entry 
of a Protestant into the College of Cardinals would have 
meant the triumph of the Reformation. To make matters 
worse. His Excellency Comrade Millerand sat cheek by 
jowl in the cabinet with Gallifet, queller of the Commune; 
in his official capacity he welcomed to Paris the Czar, 

1 "It is because the proletariat played a decisive r61e in this great 
social drama that the direct participation of a socialist in a bourgeois 
cabinet has been made possible." — Les Deux Methodex, p. 5. 

^ "There is nothing changed and can be nothing changed in the 
existing order so long as capitalist property has not been abolished." 
— Guesde, ibid., p. 14. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 265 

red with the blood of Russian revolutionaries; as a mem- 
ber of the cabinet he upheld rigorous armed repression 
of strikes. Bad led to worse. 

At the height of the discussion in 1900, the International 
Socialist Congress met in Paris. It endeavored to heal the 
differences between the warring factions and to decide 
authoritatively on the tactics involved. A compromise 
resolution, moved by Kautsky, was passed, declaring that 
"the entry of a socialist into a bourgeois government 
could be considered only a forced, temporary, and excep- 
tional expedient." Jaures accepted the resolution, but 
Guesde and Vaillant held out for a more thoroughgoing 
repudiation of the policy of ministerialism. The attempt to 
bring about union failed, but a partial cessation of the 
factional struggle came with the welding of all the scat- 
tered forces into two large groups, the French Socialist 
Party, comprising the Broussists, Alleraanists, and Inde- 
pendent Socialists, and the Socialist Party of France, made 
up of the Guesdists, Blanquists, and various minor frac- 
tions. 

After the Millerand portfolio, the Combes bloc. The 
Waldeck-Rousseau ministry had warded off the attack of 
the forces of reaction. The Combes ministry, which fol- 
lowed, carried the war into Africa by striking at the sources 
of clerical influence, dissolving monastic congregations, 
and secularizing education, with separation of church and 
state looming up in the distance. The new cabinet rested 
on a bloc of the parties of the Left, Ministerial Republicans, 
Radicals, Socialist Radicals, and Socialists. Not only did 
the Socialists lend the government their votes: Jaures 
guided and inspired their policy, playing Pere Joseph to 
M. Combes' Richelieu. Again the revolutionary wing 
became alarmed at the pace: Jaures' support of the cabi- 
net was alleged to be too systematic and unquestioning, the 
inclusion of delegates of the French Socialist Party in a 
committee of all the ministerial groups was held to merge 



866 SOCIALISM 

that party in the democratic mass. Yet the Guesdists and 
Blanquists themselves, if halting short of the opportunist 
extremes of the Jaures faction, gave the ministry unswerv- 
ing support at every critical vote, capping the climax by 
supporting a resolution of which a section specifically 
repudiated collectivism, because it was regarded as a mo- 
tion of confidence in the government.^ Such differences 
as existed between the two factions furnished the theme 
for a full-dress debate on tactics at the next International 
Congress, held at Amsterdam in 1904. In spite of Jaures* 
impassioned defense and his audacious arraignment of the 
helpless sterility of German socialism as more dangerous to 
the common cause than French opportunism, the major- 
ity sided with Bebel and Guesde in re-voting the Dresden 
resolution of 1903, which condemned revisionist tenden- 
cies toward reconciliation. It was significant, however, 
that most of the delegations which had free parliamentary 
institutions and prospects of success themselves voted 
against the attempt to force on France a policy framed for 
less favorable conditions.* 

* Cf. the contemporary testimony of Marcel Sembat, a leading Blan- 
quist: "Is the difference in attitude between the two parhamentary 
groups really so profound? We of the revolutionary socialist group have 
always desired to show that we were not ministeriaUsts by settled deter- 
mination, and to give our votes to the government only when it merited 
them. But in fact, especially since the Russo-Japanese war, it is imdeni- 
able that we have systematically sustained the ministry. If we were as 
impartial as we profess, would we not, when the ministry was attacked, 
wait to learn whether it was right before expressing our approval? Now 
in case of attack upon it, you see us in the front rank shouting in a way 
to drown the voices of the most hardened ministerialists in the parlia- 
mentary socialist group." — "Petite Republique," Nov. 2, 1904, in Mil- 
haud, La Tactiqne Socialiste, ii, p. 142. 

2 The Adler-Vandervelde amendment, affirming the class struggle 
tactics, but refraining from condemning Jaures' policy as an infringe- 
ment of those tactics, was supported by 21 votes: Great Britain 2, Argen- 
tina 2, Austria 2, Belgium 2, British Colonies 2, Denmark 2, France 1, 
Holland 2, Norway 1, Poland 1, Sweden 2, Switzerland 2; and opposed 
by 21 votes, Germany 2, Bohemia 2, Bulgaria 2, Spain 2, United States 
8, France 1, Hungary 2, Italy 2, Japan 2, Norway 1, Poland 1, Russia 2. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 267 

To excommunication by this latter-day church council 
was added rebuff by Jaures' democratic allies. The more 
moderate elements of the bloc, wearying of their impetu- 
ous colleagues, turned to the Right for support; the Rouvier 
and Clemenceau cabinets which followed made no bid for 
socialist votes. For the present a policy of opportunism 
was out of the question. The way was clear for union of 
the warring factions, and in 1905 the Guesde and Jaures 
forces joined to form the United Socialist Party. Many 
members of the French Socialist Party were unwilling to 
follow Jaures in the concessions made for harmony's sake, 
and carried on their own organization. From the ranks of 
the latter group there have come in recent years two cabi- 
net ministers, Viviani and Millerand, and even a premier 
in Aristide Briand. Needless to say, the Briand who makes 
his platform social solidarity and cessation from factional 
struggle is so far from the Briand who was once the most 
reckless advocate of the general strike that his erstwhile 
comrades of the United Socialists refuse to recognize him. 

But meantime these shifts of parliamentary tactics were 
losing their importance. The whole political movement 
was being overshadowed by the growth of a new revolu- 
tionary economic organization, independent of both wings 
of the party, reformist or revolutionary, and competing 
with them for proletarian favor. Syndicalism, or the new 
unionism, is the most characteristic contribution made by 
France to the revolutionary working-class movement. Its 
creed, in brief, is that the working class must work out its 
own salvation, by its own organs, by direct and not by 
deputed action, and that the syndicat or labor union, chief 
of these organs, is to be regarded not merely as an instru- 
ment for securing partial alleviations of the existing cap- 
italist system or as a recruiting-ground for socialist parties, 

The amendment failing a majority, the Dresden resokition was passed by 
25 votes to 5, with 12 abstentions. — Protokoll, Amsterdam, p. 49; and 
Milhaud, op. ciU, p. 162. 



268 SOCIALISM 

but as itself the instrument of revolution and the cell of 
the future social organism. 

The rapid growth of syndicalist doctrines in France may- 
be attributed to several causes. Primary is the numerical 
and especially the pecuniary weakness of French labor 
unions, disposing to more radical action than would be 
acceptable to the strong German or English organizations. 
The reaction against parliamentary opportunism, the 
feeling that a handful of deputies, chiefly of middle-class 
origin and habits of thought, could not adequately represent 
working-class demands, turned this radicalism from the 
political channel. The anti-parliamentary agitation of 
the anarchists, who began in the nineties to burrow in the 
unions, confirmed the tendency. Able leaders rose to give 
the new movement shape and guidance; Pelloutier, the 
most original and striking figure in the early days of the 
movement, Pouget, Griffuelhes, Delesalle, Yvetot, and 
others in later years. A group of bourgeois intellectuals, 
including Georges Sorel, the subtle critic of Marxism, 
Hubert Lagardelle, and Edouard Berth in France, with 
Robert Michels in Germany and Arturo Labriola and 
Enrico Leone in Italy, have given notable service in sys- 
tematic and clarifying exposition.^ 

The organization in which the doctrines of syndicalism 
are embodied, the Confederation Generale du Travail, or 
C. G. T., is the outcome of a long and checkered develop- 
ment. The first national Federation of Trade Unions, which 
came under Guesdist control in 1879, was kept in strict sub- 
ordination to the party. It never manifested much inde- 
pendent vitality and passed away in 1895. In that year the 
C. G. T. was organized, largely under Blanquist inspira- 

^ These intellectuals hasten, however, to aflBrm that they are not in 
any way responsible for the development of the movement. "Revolu- 
tionary syndicalism is the peculiar and original creation of the French 
working class; ... if we have had a role, it has been simply the r61e 
of interpreters, translators, glossarists; we have served as spokesmen, 
nothing more." — Edouard Berth, Le mouvement socialiste,no. 198, p. 390- 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 269 

tion. Meantime the establishment in 1886 of the Paris 
Labor Exchange and of similar institutions in other cities 
in rapid succession provided the nucleus for a new organ- 
ization. The labor exchanges, established to provide a 
permanent meeting-place for the city's workers, to serve 
as a centre of labor activity and education, and aid in 
coordinating the demand and supply of labor, soon became 
the headquarters of revolutionary propaganda. A fed- 
eration of labor exchanges was formed in 1892, and in- 
corporated ten years later in the C. G. T. The latter body, 
which thus became the undisputed central organization 
of French trade unionism, consists of two autonomous 
sections. In each the unit is the local trade, or rather the 
industrial, union. Locally, the unions of all industries are 
grouped in the labor exchanges, and these organizations, 
again, unite to form the Federation of Labor Exchanges, 
one of the main sections of the central body. Profession- 
ally, the unions are grouped in national federations, which, 
again, unite to form the second division of the C. G. T., 
the section of the Industrial and Trade Federations. The 
two sections comprise probably half of the million union 
men in France. 

What syndicalism stands for, may be most clearly seen 
by noting the points which differentiate it from other 
movements more or less akin. It differs from pure and 
simple trade unionism in its revolutionary aim and in its 
adherence to the class-struggle doctrine, from anarchism in 
its exclusively proletarian appeal and its stress on con- 
structive measures, and from orthodox socialism in its 
distrust of political action and counter-emphasis on purely 
proletarian weapons and institutions.^ 

Syndicalism differs from trade unionism of the classic 

English type in aim, in method, and in spirit. Its aim is 

revolutionary. Nothing less than the complete overthrow 

of the capitalist system will content it. Partial ameliora- 

^ C£. Lagardelle, Le mouvement aocialiate, no. 199, p. 426. 



270 SOCIALISM 

tions of the wage-earners' lot may be accepted, must in 
fact be demanded, but all the time with a clear conscious- 
ness that no concession which it is in the power of the 
capitalist to grant can meet their just and full demand. 
The interests of bourgeois and proletarian are irreconcil- 
able and class war is the only possible means of settle- 
ment. In method the difference is equally vital. The syn- 
dicalist does not put his trust in well-filled war-chests. It 
is part of his creed that a union fights best on a lean treas- 
ury. The difference in spirit may be illustrated by a 
rather rhetorical passage in which M. Griffuelhes contrasts 
French and German unionism : — 

What characterizes the French workman is his audacity and 
independence. Nothing daunts him. He is above all authority, 
all respect, all hierarchies. When a command is given by the 
powers that be, while the first instinct of the German workman 
is to obey, the first instinct of the French workman is to rebel. 
. . . And if one stops to consider what action involves, the 
superiority of French decisiveness and initiative over German 
prudence and sluggishness is manifest. Reflect too much and 
one never undertakes anything. One must go ahead, let him- 
self be borne on by his own impetus, trusting only to himself, 
and reflecting that it is not for us to adapt ourselves to the law 
but for the law to adapt itself to our will. . . . The originality 
of French syndicalism lies in the fact that its only policy is 
action."^ 

With anarchism, the new movement has much in com- 
mon, so much so that socialist critics insist that syndical- 
ism is only anarchism in disguise. In their opposition to 
the state, to political action, to militarism, both move- 
ments seem at one. But, it is claimed by the exponents 
of syndicalism, the resemblances are only superficial, the 
differences fundamental. Anarchism is a survival of 
eighteenth-century individualism and sentimentalisra, 
syndicalism a forerunner of twentieth-century cooperation 

^ Syndicalisme et socialisme, p. 57. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 271 

and scientific matter-of-factness. Anarchism makes its 
appeal to all humanity, syndicalism to the proletarian 
alone. Anarchism, reactionary at bottom, can see no good 
in capitalism or any of its works; syndicalism thanks it for 
preparing the material equipment and the spirit of co- 
operation essential for the society of the future. Anarch- 
ism makes the individual the unit, syndicalism the union. 
Even in their anti-militarism they wear their rue with a 
difference, anarchism being actuated by humanitarian 
motives, syndicalism by opposition to the use of the army 
in suppressing industrial outbreaks.^ 

Between syndicalism and socialism one would expect to 
find more harmony. Both profess to be based on the class 
struggle; both profess to be aiming at the same goal, the 
collective ownership of industry. Yet the syndicalists 
obstinately decline to accept either the leadership or the 
cooperation of the Socialist party. It is a tantalizing 
situation; the hosts of the workers are marshaling under 
socialist banners and marching to a socialist goal, all as 
per programme, but they ungratefully refuse to accept the 
leaders predestined for their guidance or to follow in 
the paths thought out for their progress. Guesde planted, 
and Jaures watered, but Pouget and Griff uelhes reap the 
increase. 

The syndicalist critic, making his attack from the op- 
posite quarter to that from which the revisionist fire is 
directed, charges that orthodox socialism is played out. 
As a doctrine, it has become either, as in France, merely 
a variant of the prevailing creed of solidarity, or, as in 
Germany, a meaningless and hair-splitting commentary 
on a few ambiguous odds and ends of phrases let fall by 
Marx. As a movement, it has become sluggish, colorless, 
correct, a bourgeois radicalism of a slightly more ad- 
vanced type. The old fire has gone. Responsibility for 
this parlous condition is placed on its adherence to 
* Cf. Berth, op. cit., p. 32; Lagardelle, op. cit., p. 431. 



272 SOCIALISM 

parliamentary tactics, its transformation into a political 
party. ^ 

While it was the entrance of Millerand into a bourgeois 
cabinet that first awakened widespread discontent among 
the militant spirits of the labor exchanges, distrust of 
ministerial participation soon developed into distrust of po- 
litical action. This distrust was directed against Guesde 
as well as against Jaures. Right wing and Left wing might 
differ on the minor question of tactics, piecemeal or com- 
plete capture of power, but both agreed that the ballot was 
the socialist's best weapon. Of the two sections the Guesd- 
ist was the more uncompromisingly parliamentarian; it 
was the congress of the French Labor party, at Lille, 
which declared that it considered as socialists "none but 
those who, relying on the socialist group in the Chamber 
of Deputies, seek the abolition of the capitalist regime by 
means of the conquest of political power by the proletariat." 
The policy of political penetration had made little change 
in the lot of the workers; particularly it had done nothing 
to develop and train their capacities and fit them for their 
part in the socialist commonwealth, had produced no 
alteration in the character of the state. And what was true 
of the fragmentary conquest of state power by a few 
socialists, the deduction ran, was equally true of the com- 
plete conquest by the whole Socialist party: "When 
Augustus had supped, it may be that Poland was drunk; 
but whether a few socialists become ministers or all the 
ministers are socialists, the workingmen remain none the 
less workingmen."^ 

Discontent soon voiced itself in action. Without at- 
tempting to follow all the battles and skirmishes between 
the adherents and the opponents of alliance between the 
Socialist party and the syndicalist forces, it may suffice 
to quote the concluding clauses of the resolution of neu- 

' Arturo Labriola, Syndicalisme et socialisme, p. 11. 
' Lagardelle, Le mouvement socialiste, no. 199, p. 429. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 27S 

trality adopted by the C. G. T. at the Congress of Amiens 
in 1906 and resolutely adhered to since: — 

So far as the individual is concerned, the Congress affirms that 
the member of a union is entirely at liberty to participate, out- 
side the union, in whatever movements correspond to his phil- 
osophical or political beliefs, limiting itself to ask in return that 
he should not introduce within the union the opinions he pro- 
fesses beyond its confines. So far as the organization is con- 
cerned, the Congress declares that, in order that syndicalism may 
attain its maximum effect, its economic action should be carried 
on directly against the employer, the federated organizations 
having, as labor organizations, nothing to do with parties and 
sects, which, outside its sphere, are entirely at liberty to seek 
the transformation of society."^ 

The refusal of syndicalism to ally itself with parliament- 
ary socialism is based, negatively, on its belief in the essen- 
tially faulty position of the latter, and positively, on its 
belief in its own self-sufBciency. The indictment it brings 
against the Socialist party is that it is based on a miscon- 
ception of the class struggle. Party struggle is not class 
struggle. The party is bound together by identity of 
opinion, the class by identity of interests. The party is an 
artificial grouping of men of all classes united by a tem- 
porary agreement; the class is an organic division of men 
subjected to the same economic influences, living and 
working on the same plane of material interest. This mis- 
conception has fatal results on the composition both of 
the rank and file and of the leaders of the party. The rank 
and file are recruited from every region of discontent; the 
party is committed to the defense of every doomed and 
decaying fraction of the petty bourgeoisie which is suffer- 
ing from the onward and inevitable march of industrial 
progress; its action is clogged and hampered by the 
necessity of catering to the largest possible vote. The 
leaders more and more are drawn from the bourgeois 

* Compte rendu du xv' congres national corporatif, p. 171. 



274 SOCIALISM 

"intellectuals," some led into the socialist ranks by honest 
conviction, some seeking the loaves and fishes, seats in 
parliament, or editorship of party organs — the camp- 
followers whom Marx denounced as "lawyers without 
clients, doctors without patients and without learning, 
students of billiards." Whatever their motive be, self- 
sacrificing or self-seeking, they are in either case hope- 
lessly out of touch with proletarian thought and life. 
Fatal, again, to the integrity of socialist doctrine, is the 
changed attitude toward the state which results from 
parliamentary action. Instead of becoming less and less, 
the state becomes more and more; it is rashly hoped that 
a mere change in government personnel will suflSce for 
redemption. The attempt is made to realize socialism in 
the framework of the existing state. And meantime the 
workers are assigned merely the passive role of casting a 
ballot once in four years. No attempt is made here and 
now to build up the economic institutions which are to 
control the society of the future, or to train the workers 
for the new and greater part they are to play.^ 

Syndicalism is not content with negative criticism; it 
has a positive constructive policy to offer. It adopts the 
old war-cry of the International, "The emancipation of 
the workers must be Avrought by the workers themselves," 
and gives it new meaning. In every class struggle in the 
past, it is contended, the revolutionary class has created 
its own organs of emancipation. In the battle against 
feudal privilege the middle class conquered, not by pene- 
trating and controlling the distinctively aristocratic in- 
stitutions, but by creating new institutions, free towns and 
parliaments, and thus building up the framework of a new 
bourgeois society while demolishing the old feudal society. 
So the workers must not waste effort seeking to conquer 

* Cf. Le parti socialiste et la Confederation Gencrale du Travail : Berth, 
Les nouveaux aspects du socialisme ; Sorel, La decomposition du marxisme 
(Bibliotheque du mouvement socialiste). 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 275 

and transform the bourgeois institution, the state; they 
must destroy the state, rob it of its functions. The pro- 
letariat has its own distinctive institution ready to its 
band — the union. It is the mission of the Confederation 
Generale du Travail to aid the workers in forging this new 
mechanism for its divers purposes, building up union, 
federation, labor exchange, each with its part to play in the 
society of the future. Marx himself, whom syndicalists 
delight to quote against the Marxists, was the first to 
recognize that in the struggle for proletariat emancipation 
the union was to play the part played by the commune 
in the struggle for bourgeois emancipation.^ 

The union, then, has a double part to play: "In the pre- 
sent an organization for collective resistance, in the future 
the unit of production and distribution, the basis of social 
reorganization." ^ Or as the organ of the movement 
phrases it: "The labor unions are coming to recognize more 
and more clearly the important part they have to take in 
the social structure. They know that besides defending 
their daily bread they have to make ready the future. 
They know that the labor organization is the matrix in 
which the world of to-morrow is being moulded."^ The 
institutions of the future exist in embryo at present; here 
and now beginnings may be made in upbuilding the order 
that is to be. Syndicalism is at one with revisionism in this 
installment attitude, however widely the means adopted 
differ in character. Action is not postponed till some 
distant cataclysmal instant. According to Pouget, "the 
revolution is a work of every moment, of to-day as well 
as of to-morrow; it is a continuous movement, a daily 
battle, without truce or respite, against the forces of 
oppression and exploitation." ^ In such a creed, it is clear, 

^ Cf. Lagardelle and Berth, op. cit.\ Sorel, L'avenir socialiste des syn- 
dicats. 

^ Compfe rendu du xv^ congres national corporalif, p. 171. 

' Voix du peuple, no. 1, 1900. 

* Pouget, Le parti du travail, p. 14. 



«76 SOCIALISM 

there is none of the passivity of the fatalist belief in the 
all-sufEcingness of economic evolution, none of the passiv- 
ity of deputed action. Syndicalism, with its policy of 
direct action, demands all the courage and confidence and 
energy the workers can summon, and in turn trains them 
for the tasks they will have to assume in the future. 

Gradually, then, the various labor organizations must 
take over whatever functions they can snatch from the 
employer and from the state, preparing for the day when 
they will supersede both entirely. Against the state direct 
action takes the form of "external pressure," by agitation 
and demonstration in force, as employed in the successful 
campaign in 1903-04 for the abolition of registry offices, 
and in 1906 for the passing of a weekly day-of-rest law.* 
Against the employer the means adopted are novel not in 
themselves but in the revolutionary vigor with which they 
are applied. The strike, the main weapon, depends for its 
success not so much on strong strike funds, as on "the 
enthusiasm, the revolutionary spirit, the aggressive 
vigor" of the workers, who recognize the futility of com- 
peting with their employers on the pecuniary plane.^ 
Characteristic are two customs which have marked recent 
French strikes: the "communist kitchen," where cooper- 
ative housekeeping is carried on, both for economy's sake 
and for the stimulus of contact, and the "children's ex- 
odus," the dramatic expedient of shipping to syndicalist 
sympathizers in other cities all the children of the strik- 
ers, thus putting the forces on a war basis. ^ Sabotage, or 
wrecking, is an expedient which has aroused much syn- 
dicalist enthusiasm and bourgeois condemnation. This 
means, the use of which was formally recommended by 
the Congress of Toulouse, takes the form " sometimes of a 
slowing-up in production, sometimes of bad workmanship; 

* Pouget, La Confederation Gintrale du Travail, p. 46. 
2 Ibid., p. 41. 

• H. Lagardelle, Archivfiir Sozialwiasenschaft, xx\i, p. 611, note. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 277 

... in retail trade it takes the form of wasting the com- 
modity sold, to the customer's benefit, or the contrary 
practice of rebuffing the customer to lead him to take his 
custom elsewhere. . . . The fear of sabotage is a precious 
sedative. . . . An example of its efficacy is afforded by 
the success of the employees of the Parisian hair-dressing 
establishments in winning a weekly rest-day and shorter 
hours. It was by 'whitewashing' the fronts of the shops 
with a caustic solution which injured the paint that this 
union won its better terms. In the space of three years 
out of the two thousand shops in Paris there were scarcely 
one hundred which were not "whitewashed" at least once 
if not oftener." ^ 

The most spectacular of syndicalist policies is the gen- 
eral strike. It is the climax of "direct action." There is 
something that fascinates the French workman's dramatic 
imagination in the picture of the sudden paralysis of 
industry from end to end of the state by the concerted 
strike of the whole working force of the country. This 
policy, discussed sporadically in socialist and anarchist 
congresses since its first broaching at the Geneva Congress 
in 1866, put into practice of late years by the workmen of 
Belgium and Italy and Russia to secure political reforms, 
and in Sweden in 1909 on a gigantic scale for industrial ends, 
has become the peculiar possession of French syndicalism. 
At first it took the idyllic form of "the revolution with 
folded arms" — a mere picnic in the Bois du Boulogne; 
but in its later expressions it is authoritatively declared, 
"it does not mean merely the cessation of work; it means 

- Pouget, op. cit., p. 41. Cf. Jules Guesde: "The boycott, sabotage, 
partial strikes! These are the weapons, the sole weapons, with which 
you pretend to transform the institution of property and society! It is 
with these weapons you expect to make a thrifty conquest of the state, 
to spike the cannons trained upon you. ... Is not this the hcipht of 
ridiculousness? And yet you have not another weapon in your arsenal." 
— Speech at Congress of Nancy, 1907, reported in Le parti socialisie et la 
Confederation du Travail, p. 40. 



278 SOCLVLISM 

the taking possession of the wealth of society . . . for the 
common good ... by violent or peaceful means according 
to the resistance to be overcome." ^ 

Scouted at first by the majority of socialists — general 
strike is general nonsense, declared Auer — it has of late 
made rapid headway on the whole continent. Even Ger- 
man socialists have given it qualified adherence, upholding 
the reformist or peaceable general strike, declared for the 
protection or obtaining of political privileges and carried 
on in subordination to political activity. The revolution- 
ary strike, proclaimed as a self-sufficient instrument for 
bringing about the fall of capitalism, is ridiculed by leaders 
like Bebel and Guesde, who contend that only a fraction 
of the population could be induced to strike, that in a test 
of endurance the strikers themselves would fare worst, 
that society has time and again shown tremendous re- 
cuperative power after the anarchy of devastating war, and 
that failure would mean not merely the temporary check 
political defeat entails but an intense reaction crippling 
the socialist movement for years,^ Will millions of work- 

1 Griffuelhes, Vaction syndicaliste, p. 33. Cf. the oflScial prophecy of 
its workings: "The cessation of work, which would place the country 
in the rigor of death, would necessarily be of short duration; its terrible 
and incalculable consequences would force the government to capitulate 
at once. If It refused, the proletariat, in revolt from one end of France to 
the other, would be able to compel it, for the military forces, scattered 
and isolated over the whole territory, would be unable to act in concert 
and could not oppose the slightest resistance to the will of the workers, 
at last masters of the situation." — Circulaire de comite dc la greve gent- 
rale, 1898. 

2 "The general strike has attained whole or partial success only when 
it has been abrupt, when it has taken the government by surprise, and 
when the bourgeoisie have not taken a solid stand against the strikers. 
This was the case, for example, with the first Belgian strike in April, 
1893, and the first Russian general strike in October, 1904. On the other 
hand the Dutch general strike (1903), the second Belgian general strike 
(1902), the second and third Russian general strikes, which did not take 
the government by surprise and which found little support among the 
bourgeoisie, have ended in checks which have exercised, long after 
the defeat, a depressing influence on the proletariat." — Vandervelde, La 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 279 

ingmen consent to die of hunger for their class, when 
for their class they are not willing to drop a ballot into 
the ballot-box?^ But criticism is vain against religious en- 
thusiasm; even if the general strike is impracticable, it has 
for its theoretical adherents the incomparable advantage 
of a myth which animates and guides the seekers after the 
new order. 2 

A necessary complement to the policy of the general 
strike is the anti-militarism propaganda, and the mockery 
of the ideals of patriotism. The opposition to militarism 
has its origin not merely in the knowledge that it is chiefly 
proletarian flesh that will provide the cannon-meat, but 
in hatred of the tyranny and the demoralization of barrack 
life,^ and above all in the fear of the use of the army, with 
its upper-class officers, to repress the partial strikes of 
to-day and the general strike of to-morrow. The worn-out 
prejudices of patriotism make no appeal; the probability 
of foreign invasion carries no alarm. What difference does 
it make whether it is under the French flag or the German 
that workmen are victims of unemployment and peasants 
eaten by mortgages; what difference whether the bullets 
that put down strike or insurrection come from French or 
from German guns? "Monsieur the advocate-general, 
cease waving the kaiser-bogey before us, to whom it is 
indifferent whether we are French or German." ^ Herv6- 
ism, militant anti-patriotism, it is true, is genetically not 
so much a product of syndicalist economic thinking as of 

Oreve Generate. Cf . Die Lehren dea sckwedischen Riesenhampfes, in Kor- 
respondenzblatt der Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften Deutschlands, 
1909. 

' Guesde, Congres de Lille, 1904. 

' Cf. Sorel, Reflexions sur la violence. 

* "The army is not merely the school of crime, it is also the school of 
vice, the school of idleness, of trickery, of hypocrisy and cowardice." 
Nouveau Manuel du Soldat, Federation des Bourses du Travail, 16th edi- 
tion, p. 10. 

* Gustave Herv6, L'anti-patriotisme : Diclaration en Cour d' Assises, 53d 
thousand, p. 21. 



280 SOCIALISM 

bourgeois cosmopolitanism gone to seed; the official ex- 
ponents of the new unionism are careful to point out the 
remnant of ideological prejudice which betrays the origin 
of Herveism.^ Whatever its theoretical parentage, how- 
ever, the anti-patriotic campaign finds wide support among 
syndicalists as well as among more orthodox socialist and 
bourgeois cranks. 

An essential feature of the syndicalist creed is the hos- 
tility to majority rule. Syndicalism possesses the happy 
faculty of making virtues of its necessities. Faced with 
the fact that it is only a minority of a minority, includ- 
ing in its ranks, at most, 400,000 of the 850,000 union men 
in France, who in turn are only about 17 per cent of the 
whole number of male workers, the C. G. T. proudly 
asserts the rights of the minority to rule. Democracy, 
with its majority-rule superstition, installs in power the 
reactionary and the sluggish, the inert and refractory 
masses. Syndicalism proclaims the right of the conscious 
and enlightened minority, stewards of the future, to 
represent the "human zeros" who have not awakened 
to their opportunities, whether they will or no.^ A practical 
application of this doctrine is found in the refusal of the 
controlling spirits of the C. G. T. to give the larger and 
more conservative organizations represented the weight 
to which their numbers entitle them, petty federations 
with a few score of members counting for as much as great 
national unions with a score of thousands. 

It is probable that in time the syndicalist movement 
will become more conservative in its creed and tactics as 
it becomes stronger and more representative. Meantime 
its effect has been to make the Socialist party more radical. 
The swing to the right has for the moment been reversed. 
The party has found it necessary to furbish up its rusty 
revolutionary phrases to avert wholesale desertion to the 

' Cf. Le mouvement socialiste, no. 205, pp. 472-475. 
* Cf. Pouget, op. cit., pp. 24-26. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 281 

anti-political forces. It is not the least curious feature of 
the situation that while revolutionist Guesde excommun- 
icates syndicalism with bell, book, and candle, the oppor- 
tunist Jaures, ministerialist of yesterday, but bent on 
unity at all costs, is willing to go with the syndicalists a 
mile that they may go with him twain. Parliamentary 
opportunism and anti-parliamentary syndicalism have this 
in common, that both look to establishing the foundations 
of the future socialist order in the present order, rather 
than, as the old-fashioned revolutionists propose, postpon- 
ing the bulk of the constructive work of reform till after the 
judgment-day of capitalism has passed. The party has not 
committed itself to the whole syndicalist programme. It 
has perforce, however, in spite of the strong opposition of 
the orthodox, now become the moderate faction, acknow- 
ledged the equality, if not the superiority, of the economic 
over the political weapon. It has indorsed the general 
strike. It has refused to abandon the ideal of patriotism 
or to condemn defensive warfare, but it has been so far 
affected by Herveism as to sanction the most vigorous 
campaign against warfare "by all means, from parliament- 
ary intervention, public agitation, and popular demonstra- 
tions to the general strike of the working classes and in- 
surrection." It has vigorously attacked the Clemenceau 
and Briand governments for their firm repression of strike 
violence, and has indorsed the demands of the postal and 
railway employees of the state for a measure of administra- 
tive autonomy which would eventually lead to the super- 
session of the state by the unions of government employees, 
in the management of nationalized industries. At the same 
time the change in the political situation confirms this tend- 
ency of the socialists to stand aloof from the government. 
The rout of the clerical and monarchical forces has re- 
moved the danger which bound all the parties of the Left 
together in defense of a lay and Republican France. The 
government tends to substitute a policy of reconciliation 



282 SOCIALISM 

and social peace for the policy of combat and to find its 
support in a regrouping of centre parties. As it shifts to the 
right, inevitably the Socialist party reverts to its isolation 
on the extreme left — till the next turn of the kaleido- 
scope. 

From France and Germany socialism has spread through- 
out Europe, varying with the industrial and political and 
racial environment of each country. The movement is 
everywhere of interest and, in several states, of importance. 
In Italy, a middle-class, intellectual, reformist socialism 
seems to be gaining the upper hand over a revolutionary 
working-class syndicalism. In Spain, the socialist move- 
ment, strongly tinged with anarchism, is perforce as much 
anti-clerical and anti-monarchical as anti-capitalist. In 
Hungary and eastern Europe, the movement is compara- 
tively weak in face of the feudalist constitution of society. 
In Austria, the growing industrialism and the preoccupa- 
tion of other parties with racial issues have given socialism 
strong hold as the chief means of expressing social discon- 
tent. In Russia, despotism has made the right wing of the 
movement, the Social Democratic party, revolutionary, 
and the left wing, the Socialist Revolutionary party, ter- 
rorist. In the Scandinavian countries, socialism is firmly 
based on trade unionism. In Belgium, the characteristic 
feature is the development of cooperation, and to a less 
extent of trade unionism, alongside the political party, as 
equal and integral parts of the movement. In Holland, the 
inevitable strife between opposing sections has led to oppor- 
tunist triumph and orthodox secession. Yet, interesting 
and important as are the Continental developments, no- 
where are the fortunes of socialist agitation so significant 
as in the two countries which are the chief seats of the 
capitalism against which socialism makes war, the United 
Kingdom and the United States. 

It is a striking instance of the irony of fate that the 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 283 

country which Marx regarded as the mirror in which all 
other lands could see their own future development, the 
country which gave him the data for the downfall of 
capitalism he forecast, and sheltered him in the unques- 
tioning obscurity of London while he elaborated his world- 
shaking theories, is the land of all the great powers of 
Europe where revolutionary socialism makes slowest 
progress. Seventy years ago Engels declared that "pro- 
phecy is nowhere so easy as in England. . . . The revolu- 
tion must come; it is already too late to bring about a 
peaceful solution." That revolution still hangs fire. 

Racial qualities have made against ready acceptance of 
sweeping socialist proposals of regeneration. The individ- 
ualistic temper of the typical Englishman, his sturdy self- 
reliance and readiness to fight for his own hand, coupled 
with an instinctive respect for his social superiors, his 
uneasy distrust of long views and theoretical complete- 
ness, his insular prejudice against mere foreigners' ideas — 
passing latterly — his proneness to compromise and to 
muddle through, have long been recognized as bulwarks of 
the existing order. This very reluctance to commit himself 
to a doctrinaire position, however, works to some extent 
both ways; he will not be deterred from advocating a 
specific installment of socialist practice which commends 
itself to his judgment by fears of long-distance conse- 
quences; Liberty and Property Defense Leagues share the 
sectarian isolation of Social Democratic parties. 

The economic environment presents both favorable and 
unfavorable aspects to the agitator. In no country has the 
concentration of landed property gone to the lengths 
familiar in the United Kingdom. With a Scottish ducal 
estate running over a million acres, and half of the land of 
England and Wales in the hands of four thousand owners, 
the time would seem ripe for socialist preaching. Yet few 
fields are in reality less favorable; the isolation of the 
English rural laborer, his narrow horizons and his social 



284 SOCULISM 

dependence thwart all efiPorts at organized revolt. An 
equally effective and much more desirable bulwark against 
disaffection than the ignorance of Hodge is the independ- 
ence of Pat: the intervention of the state to establish 
peasant proprietorship in Ireland, coupled with the hos- 
tility of the Catholic Church, effectually closes the greater 
part of the Emerald Isle to the collectivist. In industrial 
and mining centres conditions are more favorable for him : 
the little likelihood of the average workman rising to 
independent wealth gives the occasion, the relative com- 
fort the spirit, and the daily and nightly group contact the 
opportunity for organized class effort. It does not neces- 
sarily follow, however, that this effort will be directed to 
the overthrow rather than to the modification of the cap- 
italist system: the trade union, especially of the skilled 
trades, may become a pillar of society and the cooperative 
be as notable for its joint-stock individualism as for its 
social unity. The long preeminence of Britain in manu- 
facturing and commerce, again, brought a prosperity in 
which the workers shared, and though inevitably Britain's 
lead has lessened, as other nations have taken the place 
their resources and energy command, absolutely her pro- 
sperity shows no signs of slackening. 

The political institutions of Britain have been as import- 
ant as the economic in shaping the course of social move- 
ments. Her democratic freedom has made for sane pro- 
gress. Slowly and stubbornly the progressive forces have 
forced the broadening of the franchise to include every 
male householder or permanent lodger, and little com- 
plaint is heard from the men still beyond the pale. The 
civil liberty which permits freedom of speech, of writing 
and of association, and makes the official responsible at 
law for his acts, has long been the despair of Continental 
workingmen. This freedom, civil and political, makes 
agitation easy but also makes it less dangerous; there is 
no Russian policeman sitting on the safety-valve. The 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 285 

anomalous privileges of hereditary lawmakers and the 
attempt to keep the Commons an appendage of the leisure 
classes by refusing payment of members have had far- 
reaching effect on the tactics of the labor movement. 
Cabinet government has assured majority control, while 
the two-party framework within which the modern social 
movement has been developed, has made for compromise 
and cooperation, rather than for the antagonism of the 
sects and groups. 

In this environment it was certain that there could be 
no mere duplication of the German or the French move- 
ment. For many a year, indeed, it seemed that no con- 
scious organized socialist movement of any type would 
develop. The vague unrest which had found diverse 
expression in Owenism and Chartism died down as freedom 
of trade and regulation of industry fostered and shared 
prosperity. The working classes were absorbed in political 
agitation to secure the suffrage and in the daily task of 
building up strong and businesslike unions. English 
participation in the International was half-hearted and 
for transitory ends. On all sides socialism was regarded 
as a curious Continental malady from which Britain was 
fortunately immune. Then slowly the change came. The 
attainment of the franchise left the field free for economic 
agitation. The New Unionism, representing the efforts 
of the unskilled millions to organize, developed tendencies 
more radical than had marked the older unionism of the 
skilled trades, the aristocracy of labor. Henry George's 
burning attack on the iniquities of landlordism made a 
profound impression in Great Britain and stirred wide 
circles to radical thinking and to attacks on other forms 
of privilege than rent. The writings of Marx gradually 
became known. Slowly one organization after another was 
formed to voice the rising unrest and socialism was once 
more a conscious force in Britain. 

First in the field, and to this day the chief exponent of 



286 SOCIALISM 

pure Marxism in England, was the Social Democratic 
Federation. Established in 1881 as an advanced radical 
society, it adopted its socialist name and policy two years 
later. From that time it has been indomitably persevering, 
if not correspondingly effective, in proclaiming the coUect- 
ivist gospel. At one time or another it has counted in its 
ranks most of the leading socialists of England. Hyndman 
and Burrows, prominent among the founders, and Quelch 
and Lee of the early recruits, are still in command. But 
the majority of the able men it attracted have later fallen 
away. William Morris, who broadened socialist thought 
to take heed of art, Belfort Bax, the philosopher of the 
movement, and Ernest Aveling, son-in-law of Marx and 
popularizer of his writings, seceded in 1885, to form the 
short-lived Socialist League; the sources of dissension were 
chiefly personal, though Morris soon developed strong 
anarchistic sympathies incompatible with the rigid col- 
lectivism of the parent society. Many of the Fabian lead- 
ers for a time found uneasy anchorage in the Federation. 
Champion was expelled after his "Tory gold" exploits 
in 1886, Tom Mann was lost to Australia, and John Burns, 
lovingly dubbed Judas Iscariot by his quondam mates, 
to the Liberals and Whitehall. 

"The Federation," wrote Engels in a private letter in 
1890, "always acts as though besides itself there only 
existed asses and quacks."^ This judgment of Engels 
reveals the source of the impotence of the organization. 
More Marxist than Marx, it early stereotyped a set of 
doctrines which are still drearily reiterated in speech and 
pamphlet, and in the weekly party organ, "Justice." The 
S. D. F., as it was usually known, or the S. D. P., since it 
changed its name to Social Democratic Party in 1908, 
took its stand firmly on the class war, looked forward 
hopefully to the speedy collapse of capitalism, and set 
itself resolutely to instruct and marshal the proletarian 
1 Eneels to Sorge in Socialist Review, i, p. 30. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 287 

hosts. It ill concealed its scorn for the cautious, bargaining, 
half-bourgeois trade union. In early days the Federation 
leaders played with revolutionary phrases and dropped 
darksome hints about the progress of chemistry in the 
fashioning of explosives, which might easily prove to 
capitalism what gunpowder had been to feudalism.^ 
In Victorian England, however, they found it necessary to 
confine themselves to political weapons, entered the race 
for votes zealously, and drew up a varied programme of 
immediate reforms ranging from abolition of the monarchy 
and repudiation of the national debt to free maintenance 
of school-children and the eight-hour day.^ Yet the work- 
ers have not flocked to their banner; the party member- 
ship is scarce a fortieth of the German strength, and not a 
single S. D. P. representative sits in the British Parliament. 
The average worker has been repelled by the strange 
phraseology in which their doctrines are clothed, the over- 
much talk of proletariat and surplus value and class con- 
flict, by the sectarian bitterness of their criticism of friend 
and foe alike, and by their rigid refusal to compromise 
for any gain. Yet while barren of immediate victories the 
S. D. P. is doubtless entitled to claim credit for preventing 
the opportunism of the less doctrinaire socialist groups 
degenerating into absorption in one of the older parties. 
The army enrolled is small, but the Social Democratic 
party has valiantly kept the Red Flag flying. 

At the opposite pole of temperament and tactics stand 
the Fabians. "The Fabians here in London," to adopt 
another of Engels' characterizations, "are a band of ambi- 
tious folk who have sufficient understanding to compre- 

* Hyndman, Historical Basis of Socialism in England, 1883, p. 443. 

^ "Socialism does not reject useful palliatives of existing anarchy. 
True, we know that such palliatives, however attractive in appearance, 
will only provide better wage-slaves for capitalists under existing insti- 
tutions. But several of them will serve to check degeneration and to 
bring up a more capable race to face the diflSculties of the near future." 
— Hyndman, Social Democracy, p. 24. 



288 SOCIALISM 

hend the inevitableness of the social revolution but who 
cannot trust this gigantic work to the rough proletarian 
alone, and therefore have the kindness to place themselves 
at the head of it. Dread of the revolution is their funda- 
mental principle." ^ It is necessary to go back to the Phil- 
osophic Radicals to find a small group of men who have 
exercised such a profound influence over English political 
thought as the little band of social investigators who 
organized the Fabian Society in 1883. They were nearly 
all men of outstanding ability, — Sidney Webb, Sydney 
Olivier, Bernard Shaw, William Clarke, Graham Wallas, 
Hubert Bland, and E. R, Pease especially, — men of mid- 
dle-class origin, and of university training. After a year 
or two of groping they found themselves and their tac- 
tics. For a quarter-century their aim has been twofold, 
to inform the socialist movement, refurbish its intellectual 
equipment, and to speed the socialization of British in- 
dustry. In the first object their success has been more 
marked in dealing with specific problems than in providing 
a satisfactory theoretical basis for socialism. In spite of 
ingenious incursions into economic rent and the minimum 
wage, they cannot be said to have furnished an analysis of 
capitalism at all comparable in sweep and power to the 
Marxian theory, which they hold in supercilious contempt. 
In historical and analytical studies of the trade-union, 
cooperative, and trust movements, however, members of 
the society have done work of the first order, not equaled 
by any orthodox contemporary, and in essay and tract one 
concrete problem after another has been examined with 
thoroughness and constructive ability, if always with 
collectivist bias. 

The Fabians are the typical opportunists of socialism, 

the preachers of revolution by installment. The continuity 

of social progress is their dominating prepossession. They 

do not believe, like their Hegelian cousins, that a day will 

* Socialist Review, i, p. 31. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 289 

ever come when it can be said, there was unsociaHsm, here 
will be socialism. It has been their political tactics to 
endeavor to lead the progressive parties to socialism, to 
convince the Liberal and the Radical and the Tory Demo- 
crat that socialism is the logical successor of their now out- 
worn creeds. They have labored ingeniously to show that 
an unconscious socialism is already in full swing in Britain, 
in post-office and public school, in hawkers' licenses and 
factory inspection and income taxation, drawing the deduc- 
tion that the nation may as well be hanged for a sheep as 
for a lamb, and go consciously to the end of the socialist 
road. Instead of founding a party, they have preferred 
to remain a coterie, permeating the existing parties and 
forcing the pace by the insistent pressure from within of 
a resolute and purposeful minority.^ 

The influence gained in parliament and county council 
was directed steadily toward the extension of state and 
municipal activity in the industrial field. The Fabian is 
acutely state conscious. Rejecting the class struggle, he 
lays stress on social solidarity, on the organic unity of the 
nation. And society he is prone to identify with state. 
He is hopelessly bureaucratic; it is not without significance 
that Webb and Olivier and others of the group were civil 
servants. Strong where Marx was weak, the Fabian has 
a passion for constructing administrative machinery. His 
tendency is toward salvation by samurai, efficient well- 
oiled government by Superior Persons, backed by all the 
power of the state. In the ideal Fabian state the French 
syndicalist would suffocate for breath and call for the 
restoration of the old order at any cost. Of late years there 

* "Their tactics are to fight the Liberals not as decided opponents, but 
to drive them on to sociaHstic consequences; therefore to trick them, to 
permeate Liberalism with Socialism and not to oppose Socialistic candi- 
dates to Liberal ones, but to palm them off, to thrust them on, under some 
pretext. When they come to their specific tactics, to gloss over the class 
war, all is rotten. Hence their fanatic hatred of Marx and all of us — oa 
account of the class war." — Engels toSorge, 1893, Socialist Review, i, p. 3L 



290 SOCIALISM 

have been mild revolutionary movements in the society, 
and attempts have been made by new members to set on 
foot a more independent activity; but as yet the Fabian 
remains a Fabian. 

The Social Democratic party appealed to the class- 
conscious workingman who could stomach the strong meat 
of Marxian economics. The Fabian Society was an organ 
of the cultured middle class. Neither appealed to that 
wide circle of middle and working class men and women 
who took a prevailingly ethical rather than economic or 
administrative attitude to life. To win their support 
socialism must appeal in more idealistic guise. In part this 
want was filled by the various Christian Socialist societies 
which carry on the tradition of Kingsley and Maurice, the 
Guild of St. Matthew, the Christian Socialist Union, 
the Liberal Christian League, and other organizations. In 
their vague, denatured version, socialism appears as a 
deduction from the Sermon on the Mount, an attempt at 
moralizing industry and settling social problems in the 
spirit of Christian brotherhood. The Clarion Fellowship 
is another idealist organization, or rather circle of readers, 
held together by the strong personality and virile homely 
English of Robert Blatchford, whose " Merrie England " and 
"Britain for the British" and weekly "Clarion" have done 
more than any other agency to bring socialism of a some- 
what Utopian and communist type to the understanding of 
the average Englishman. The incurable national interest 
in theology shows itself in Blatchford in vigorous criticisms 
of Christian dogma which cause deep embarrassment to 
the more orthodox brethren. There is also a strong idealist 
strain in the Independent Labor party, the most vital of 
the existing socialist organizations. Founded in 1893 by 
socialist trade unionists, dissatisfied with the political 
dependence of labor, it set itself to organize the working 
classes and other sympathizers by methods more adapted 
to British prejudices than those practiced by the uncom- 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 291 

promising S. D. F. The enthusiasm of Keir Hardie, the 
organizing abihty of Ramsay Macdonald, the fire of Philip 
Snowden, reinforced by the unceasing efforts of hundreds 
of local adherents, many of them socialist orators through 
the week and local preachers on Simday, slowly and stead- 
ily won converts, especially in the industrial north. Yet 
when the 1895 elections were held, the party did not suc- 
ceed in capturing a single seat; its vote of 50,000 was 
scattered through 28 constituencies. When the nineteenth 
century drew to a close the I. L. P. had no more electoral 
success to its credit, except on municipal bodies, than its 
older rival. Politically, socialism appeared to be a negligible 
force in England. 

For years it had been the dream of socialist agitators 
to win the embattled millions of trade unionism to their 
cause. On the surface progress seemed slow. Only a 
minute fraction of union members had enlisted in the 
ranks of either of the main propagandist bodies. The vast 
majority continued to vote for Liberal or for Conservative 
candidates, or, as in the case of the miners, elected union 
members who formed an almost indistinguishable section 
of the Liberal party. Yet slowly many of the younger 
leaders were being converted to more radical convictions, 
and the virtual halt in social reform which marked the last 
decades of the century, synchronizing with the revival of 
imperialist ambitions,^ brought many who halted at 
socialism to feel the need of independent working-class 
representation. The reaction culminated in a series of 
judicial decisions, upsetting the privilege of immunity from 
suit trade unions had enjoyed unquestioned for thirty 
years and paralyzing their most effective means of action. 
The Taff Vale judgment crystallized the growing dis- 
content. The Trade Union Congress which met in 1899 
decided to strive for independent labor representation, 
primarily to secure the reversal of the Taff Vale decision. 
* Cf. Hobhouse, Democracy and Reaction. 



292 SOCIALISM 

For this purpose a Labor Representation Committee was 
appointed, to unite trade unions, cooperative societies, and 
socialist organizations in an electoral alliance for this 
common end. The cooperative societies remained almost 
entirely aloof. The trade unions came in with alacrity, the 
adhesion of the miners, the last large group to hesitate, in 
1908, bringing the membership represented up to nearly 
a million and a half. The socialist organizations had to face 
the question whether alliance would bring permeation of 
labor by socialist views or absorption of socialists in the 
huge labor mass. The Fabians and I. L. P. had sufficient 
opportunism and sufficient faith in their convictions to 
join the movement and remain in permanent cooperation. 
The S. D. F. joined at the outset, but seceded after a brief 
experience of the impossibility of foisting Marxian social- 
ism on the party. ^ The new organization was soon tested. 
Taken unprepared in the khaki election of 1900, it suc- 
ceeded in winning only two seats, though polling an 
average vote of four thousand in the constituencies con- 
tested. In 1906 fortune was more favorable; thirty mem- 
bers were returned, and the adherence later of the miners' 
representatives brought the strength of the party up to 
over forty. 

Success brought up the crucial issue which is dividing 
socialism the world over. What attitude should the labor 
group take to Parliament and to older parties? On the one 
hand the straiter socialists, within the party and without, 

^ A curious reversal of r61es followed when the London correspondent 
of Vorwarts, Herr Beer, revealed to the I. L. P. the fact that INIarx had 
declared that one labor movement was worth ten socialist platforms, 
that the important thing was that the forces of labor should move as a 
class — that socialism would follow. At once the I. L. P. ceased the crit- 
icisms directed against Marx when he was regarded as the special totem 
of the S. D. P., and delighted to boast its superior Marxian orthodoxy. 
The International Socialist Bureau took the same view when in 1909 
it admitted the Labor party to membership, on the ground that, while 
the party did not explicitly recognize the class struggle, it was actually 
carrying it on. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 203 

urged rigid independence of both the capitaHst parties, 
a firm insistence that ParHament should straightway cease 
its mere partisan trivialities and begin the enactment of 
the coUectivist programme, an unceasing guerilla action 
regardless of the fate of cabinets or front- bench arrange- 
ments. On the other hand, the more practical men re- 
nounced sterile declamation and called for a working 
arrangement with whatever allies might be found, to secure 
at least an installment of the reforms demanded. The 
opportunists won all along the line, and the policy of co- 
operation with the Liberals was adopted from the start. 
Given the political situation and the temper of both the 
necessary parties to such a bargain which existed in the 
1906 and 1910 Parliaments, such a decision was inevitable. 
On the side of the Labor party, both rank and file and par- 
liamentary leaders were predisposed to alliance. The great 
majority of the individual members were more concerned 
with the remedying of their immediate grievances than 
with ushering in the coUectivist commonwealth of the 
distant future. Undoubtedly socialist sentiment has been 
making rapid advance in trade-union circles; at the Hull 
Congress of the Labor party, held in 1908, while a motion 
advocating nationalization of land and capital was voted 
down by a ten to one majority, a similar resolution, held, 
however, by party casuists to express merely a pious aspir- 
ation and not like the former to constitute a condition of 
party membership, received the support of delegates repre- 
senting 518,000 as against 494,000 members. Yet the total 
membership of the Independent Labor party, in large part 
of course drawn from other than union sources, amounted 
in that year to less than 20,000, so little hold has theoretic 
socialism taken on the mass of English workingmen. The 
parliamentary leaders of the party, while including a far 
larger proportion of declared socialists than the rank and 
file — twenty-six of the forty members in the 1910 Parlia- 
TQent — are men trained for the most part in trade-union 



294 SOCIALISM 

and cooperative and municipal administration, and prone 
therefore to prefer the solid achievement of the committee 
room to the fireworks of the platform. Once in the Com- 
mons, they come under its subtle influence, absorb its 
traditions of legality and compromise, feel in some cases 
the allurement of social advancement. The tumult of the 
class war sounds fainter and fainter in the distance. 

To make cooperation possible, it was necessary not only 
that one of the older parties should be ready for it but that 
it should be much more ready for it than its rival; the 
greater the disparity, the closer would be the alliance, 
the less the possibility of the Labor party, if holding the 
balance of power, killing Charles to make James king. 
For the time at least the Conservative party was out of the 
running, weighted by its aristocratic connections and its 
neglect of labor demands in the 1900 to 1905 Parliament. 
An able minority, of which the " Morning Post " is the chief 
exponent, has indeed put forward a comprehensive pro- 
gramme of social reform fully as advanced as the Liberal 
demands, but the vital difference, that while the Liberals 
proposed to finance social reform by taxes resting mainly 
on the rich, the Conservatives could only look to protective 
taxes falling on all consumers, has hitherto hampered their 
tactics. The Liberals, in the meantime, were being driven 
more and more rapidly forward in the path of social reform. 
The inroads which Tariff Reform was making in town and 
county, with its alluring promises of work for all, made it 
necessary to offer something more than the negative bless- 
ings of Free Trade, necessary to grapple with the evils in 
the distribution of wealth which offset the advantages in 
its production. The slump in imperialism that followed the 
close of the Boer War, and the introduction of Chinese 
labor into the Rand, gave the radical element in the party 
the upper hand over the whig. The tradition of reform 
overcame the tradition of laissez-faire, the spirit prevailed 
over the form : the outraged Manchesterian was speciously 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 295 

reassured that the essence of Liberalism had always been 
to secure the full development of individual capacity, and 
that while in one age this end was best assured by striking 
off the fetters of paternalism, in another age it involved the 
intervention of the democratic state. Finally, the electoral 
issues that developed made for alliance. Both Liberals 
and Labor men were opposed to the reviving pretensions 
of the House of Lords; both were traditionally opposed to 
militarist expansion, both — in spite of the many theo- 
retical affinities between socialism and protection — could 
unite in defense of Free Trade. While, therefore, few 
Liberals were prepared to concede such socialistic demands 
as those contained in the Right of Work Bill, on the issues 
immediately pressing there was the possibility of the 
closest cooperation. 

The results of the first years of concerted action seemed 
to justify the Labor party's policy. The Liberal govern- 
ment restored the immunity of trade unions from suit, 
accepting a bill drafted by the Labor party in place of its 
own official project, granted old-age pensions on a non- 
contributory basis, passed a miners' eight-hour law, pro- 
vided wage boards to deal with sweated trades, and gave 
local authorities permission to provide free meals for 
necessitous school-children. The famous Budget of 1909, 
in addition to increased taxes on spirits and tobacco, 
included super-taxes on large incomes, taxes on the un- 
earned increment of land and on undeveloped land, taxes 
on mining royalties and taxes on the monopoly value of 
liquor licenses; it provided for a valuation of all land, and 
set aside a development fund for the systematic conserva- 
tion of national resources. In all these measures the 
Labor party gave the government steady support; it criti- 
cised many proposals for not going far enough, denounced 
the foreign policy of the government in various negotia- 
tions, opposed further naval expenditure, criticised the 
lack of adequate grappling with the unemployment pro- 



296 SOCIALISM 

blem, but never carried its opposition to the extreme of 
obstruction. In the election campaign which followed the 
Lords' fateful rejection of the Budget there was, in spite of 
a few three-cornered fights and official denials of any 
explicit understanding, close cooperation between Liberal 
and Labor forces. The opening session of the new Parlia- 
ment, with the Liberal government in office by the grace 
of Irish and Labor support, witnessed even closer coalition 
than in the previous years and less Labor criticism or 
independent initiative. 

This opportunist policy has inevitably roused the fiercest 
opposition on the part of thoroughgoing socialists. Crit- 
icism is the socialist's trade and it is a trade he finds it dif- 
ficult to give up after working hours. When there is no 
capitalist to denounce it is always possible to find a weak- 
kneed brother for practice's sake; no socialist can be so 
extreme that he cannot be outdone in orthodoxy. The 
Independent Labor man considers the Fabian a dilettante, 
the Social Democrat pours scorn on the sentimentalism and 
half-heartedness of the I. L. P., and the Socialist Labor 
party — a branch of the American organization of the 
same name, as yet weak in numbers — declares that "the 
history of the I. L. P. and S. D. F. is one long tale of com- 
promise, treachery, and uncleanness." ^ But all the ortho- 
dox may unite in denouncing the Labor party. Its policy 
of opportunism, it is charged, may be British, but it is not 
socialist. The constructive statesmanship boasted by the 
parliamentary leaders of the party is a mirage; two score 
men among six hundred can achieve no real gains; they 
may reason with the majority, they may outwit them on 
occasion, but in the main must adopt a give-and-take pol- 
icy which ties their hands against any effective fighting.^ 
The Labor members should not kowtow for favors; they 
should resolutely obstruct all pariiamentary proceedings 

1 Development of Socialism in Oreat Britain, p. 21. 
* Edward Hartley (I. L. P.). in Justice, July 3, 1909. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 297 

till the needs of the starving unemployed and the sweated 
women and children are met — a policy put into practice by 
Victor Grayson, the only member of the 1906 Parliament 
returned on a purely socialist platform, who succeeded in 
having himself suspended by the Speaker for noisy inter- 
ruption of the debates on the Licensing Bill. It is useless 
for a Labor party to attempt to beat the capitalist poli- 
ticians at their own game of maneuvering and wirepulling; 
it is worse than useless, it is dangerous, for "when a social- 
ist essays to become a politician he is on the short line to 
hell." ^ The failure of the Labor party to adopt a pro- 
gramme, its mere hand-to-mouth policy, its virtual control 
by the parliamentary junta, make any consistent advance 
to socialism impossible. The party, indeed, showed signs 
of vigor and independence in the first session of the Par- 
liament of 1906, but it speedily relapsed. The Labor alli- 
ance has proved Labor dominance. The fear of injuring the 
susceptibilities of non-socialist trade unionists paralyzed 
the activities of the socialist members of the party in the 
Commons, while the Hendersons and Shackletons and 
Hodges never pretended to be anything more than trade 
unionists, men of Liberal and radical antecedents, cursed, 
many of them, with a Nonconformist conscience and the 
fetichism of the teetotaler, and likely at a crisis to "go 
Liberal" as Grant Allen's cultivated negro "went Fanti."^ 
Nor, it is claimed, did the party even make a good bar- 
gain when it sold itself hand and foot to the Liberals. It 
accepted with enthusiasm a budget which, so far from 
being socialistic, threw ten times as much fresh taxation 
on the working class as on the landlords.' By its support 
of the Licensing Bill it lost the sympathy of the working- 

^ Victor Grayson, International Socialist Review, March, 1909, p. 667. 
In the January, 1910, election this brand was plucked from the burning 
by his considerate former constituents. 

2 H. M. Hyndman, International Socialist Review, Feb., 1910, p. 683. 

» Ibid., Oct., 1909, p. 352. 



298 SOCIALISM 

man, who likes his nightly half-and-half. Its partisan 
defense of free trade alienated the masses, who were turn- 
ing toward protection, while its opposition to naval ex- 
pansion and minimizing of the German scare proved its 
utter unfitness to become a national party. ^ By indis- 
criminately supporting Liberal measures it undermined its 
own prestige, committed political suicide; the result was 
seen in the fall of the number of Labor members in the 
House from fifty-three — including Liberal-Labor — to 
forty in the new. In short, "the Labor party in England 
to-day is the greatest obstacle to socialist progress."^ 

So much for the criticism directed against the Labor 
party's policy. But there are other critics who go further 
and attack its composition. A purely trade-union party, 
it is claimed, even if converted to socialism could not suf- 
fice for the task of overthrowing capitalism. A trade 
union fails to reach the unorganized millions, who out- 
number the organized five to one. There is no room in it, 
on the other hand, for the middle-class socialist, for the 
men "just one remove from the artisan, who scorn mem- 
bership in a trade union and resent being mixed up with a 
Labor party." ^ Even the socialist, it appears, has his streak 
of snobbery. The arrangement by which the party is 
financed, each union and socialist organization aflSliated 
paying an amount equivalent to twopence per head a 
year, was hailed at the outset as a triumph of socialist 
diplomacy; the trade unions were to provide the cash 
and the socialists would furnish the candidates and the 
policy. But the unions which pay the piper have insisted 
on calling the tune: "in the Labor movement, money 
talks," and only those candidates of elastic conscience who 
are willing to toe the Labor line can obtain a nomination.^ 

' Cf. Robt. Blatchford in The Clarion and Daily Mail, 1909-10. 

* H. M. Hyndman, International Socialist Review, Oct., 1909, p. 353. 
' Keir Hardie, My Confession of Faith in the Labor Alliance. 

* New Age. June 10, 1909. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 299 

The natural consequence is incompetent leadership. "The 
comparative failure of the Labor representatives in the 
House of Commons," declares Mr. Blatchford, "is due to 
the fact that they are workingmen. It is not lack of intel- 
lect nor lack of courage nor lack of knowledge which 
palsies the Labor group. With one or two natural aristo- 
crats to lead them, all would be well." ^ 

Faced by these criticisms, and by the action to which 
criticism has led, — secession of branches of the I. L, P., 
resignation of members of its national executive, the 
establishment of an independent socialist representation 
committee, — the position of the socialist leaders, who still 
adhere to the policy of Labor alliance and Labor party 
opportunism is an uneasy one. Still more serious compli- 
cations have been introduced by the judicial decision in 
the Osborne case, which prohibits the use of union funds 
to support parliamentary representatives to whose opin- 
ions a minority of the union members are opposed, and 
thus strikes at the financial basis of the alliance. The 
movement, however, is too firmly based in economic con- 
ditions and national character to be easily overturned. It 
does not seem probable that the Labor party will be 
wrecked either by internal dissension or by judicial decis- 
ions. Whether the reconstructed party, subordinating its 
socialist ideals, will continue its policy of piecemeal reform 
and cooperation with the Liberals, or will become more 
doctrinaire, only time can tell. So far as may be judged, 
while the nation is apparently on the threshold of fresh 
extensions of state power, there seems little likelihood of 
a revolutionary socialism gaining more than the scanty 
foothold it now possesses in Britain. 

In the United States organized socialism has found it 
even more difficult to obtain a footing than in the United 
Kingdom. Until of late years few of the economic and 
^ Cited by Keir Hardie in Labor Leader, April 30, 1909. 



300 SOCIALISM 

political conditions existed which have bred socialism in 
the older world. With half of a virgin continent to exploit, 
dazzling prizes were assured for the few and a high average 
of comfort for the many. Frontier conditions and the 
natural selection of immigration developed individualism 
to the full. The mobility of labor hindered the formation 
of class ties. The free land of the West assured alternative 
employment and high wages. The great preponderance 
of farmers, for the most part owners of the land they 
worked, made radicalism possible but collectivism incred- 
ible. A universal public-school system assured a fairly even 
start in the race. Even when discontent arose, its organ- 
ization and expression were extremely difficult. The size 
of the country made against nation-wide agitation. Racial 
diversity and jealousy prevented the development of a 
common class consciousness. The negro danger in the 
South solidified the white population and silenced social 
discussion. The political environment was equally unfav- 
orable. Universal suffrage and freedom of speech and 
association gave disaffection ready outlet, but prevented it 
attaining the explosive force that follows repression. The 
constitution, while in reality, with its elaborate checks and 
counter-checks and division of authority, its lack of the 
concentrated power and responsibility of the cabinet 
system, its enthroned judiciary and its amendment-proof 
rigidity, one of the least democratic in the western world, 
was surrounded by a Fourth-of-July halo which awed 
criticism, socialist and other, and persuaded the people 
they were fortunate above all other men in their free 
institutions. Nor was the party system of the politicians 
of the day more favorable for the socialist than the 
constitution of the statesmen of 1787. Nowhere is it so 
difficult for a third party to develop as in the United 
States. The two-party habit is firmly rooted in tradition. 
The popular dislike of throwing away a vote deters all 
but the most earnest from aiding a struggling third party. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 301 

Above all, politics has become a business in which elabo- 
rate organization and a fat bank account give tremendous 
advantage: the spoils at the victors' disposal have made 
organization worth the politician's while, the multiplicity 
of offices for which the bewildered elector is forced to 
choose candidates makes organization necessary and inevit- 
able. Against the two powerful party machines the ama- 
teur is heavily handicapped. 

Yet of late years the socialist has found more cause for 
hope. Industry is concentrated in ever huger combina- 
tions, vital national resources are monopolized, wealth 
beyond the dreams of earlier avarice is heaped in single 
hands, fraud and corruption are revealed in the realms 
of high finance, easily gotten gains are flaunted in raw 
barbaric display. The poverty of Naples and Warsaw 
is transplanted to New York and Chicago. Free land and 
the frontier vanish; for the future, "America is here or 
nowhere." The evils of child labor, of slum mortality, of 
uncompensated accident stir revolt. In years of low prices 
the farmer groans under the weight of mortgages; when 
prices soar and the farmer buys his motor-car, the con- 
sumer, forced to economies which go against the grain, 
vents his indiscriminate wrath on the middleman, the 
trusts, or "the System." The trade unionist, faced with 
embattled employers' associations and hostile court decis- 
ions which cripple every activity, is led to look to political 
action for protection.^ The German immigrant, the Jew 
and the Finn, spread the socialism of Europe. The muck- 
raker develops a vaguer, more diffused socialistic senti- 
ment among the native-born. The socialist is fain to be- 
lieve his day is dawning. 

In view of these conditions it is not surprising that it is 
only of late that organized socialism has made any head- 
way in the United States. Its development has been slow 

1 Cf . Kennedy, " Socialistic Tendencies in American Trade-Unions," 
Journal of Political Economy, xvi, p. 470. 



802 SOCIALISM 

and checkered. The early Utopian communities have 
nearly all disappeared, leaving little trace in American 
life and few links with the later socialist movement. 
Until the end of the nineteenth century American social- 
ism was an imported product. Its adherents were almost 
entirely German immigrants, fighting their Old World 
battles in the New. The unripeness of the times, ignor- 
ance of American conditions, barriers of speech and tradi- 
tion, prevented their gaining wide adherence; socialism 
remained the doctrine of a few scattered faithful, with the 
consequent doctrinaire purism and proneness to dissension 
of the clique. In the early fifties Weitling organized a short- 
lived Workingmen's League. The Turnvereine or Gym- 
nastic Unions developed socialistic tendencies which did 
not survive the Civil War upheaval. The International 
found brief popularity and its formal dissolution in the 
United States. It was not until the middle of the seventies 
that an organization was developed destined to any degree 
of permanence, the Workingmen's party, established in 
1876 on a sound Marxian programme, and in the following 
year re-named the Socialist Labor party. For the next 
twenty years the Socialist Labor party was the chief organ 
of socialism. Its political activity alternated between un- 
official alliance with the Greenback and Single-Tax move- 
ment and independent action; in its first presidential 
campaign, in 1892, it secured 21,000 votes; at the height of 
its power, in 1898, it polled 82,000 votes. Its main efforts 
were directed toward converting the trade and labor 
unions, and, that endeavor failing, toward fighting and de- 
nouncing the existing union organizations and attempting 
to create a union movement subsidiary to the party. ^ The 

^ "The climax of hatred toward the 'pure and simple' trade unions 
was expressed in the following resolutions adopted by a practically 
unanimous vote in the 1900 convention : ' If any member of the Socialist 
Labor party accepts office in a pure and simple trade or labor organiea- 
tion, he shall be considered antagonistically inclined toward the Socialist 
Labor party and shall be expelled. K any officer of a pure and simple 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 803 

lack of success in either the political or economic field 
stimulated the growth of anarchism in its ranks, and it 
was not until the collapse of the anarchist agitation after 
the Haymarket tragedy that the discordant elements were 
subdued. Dissensions were never ending, intolerance 
more than ecclesiastical, and dogmatic purism increased; 
critics of the men in control of the highly centralized 
organization were branded as fakirs and traitors. Finally, 
in 1901, dissentient factions united to form the Socialist 
party, which has increasingly supplanted the Socialist 
Labor party as the chief exponent of socialist views in the 
United States. 

The twentieth century socialist movement has an 
American rank and file, middle-class leaders and an in- 
creasingly opportunist programme. Socialism in the 
United States has ceased to be exotic; while the German 
and Finnish and Jewish elements are still prominent, the 
recent growth has been mainly among the native-born. It 
has ceased to be purely a movement of manual workers; 
the leaders are usually men of liberal education and pro- 
fessional occupation, while the middle-class representation 
in the ranks is increasing. Its policy is increasingly oppor- 
tunist, although it has not yet been transformed into a 
mere radical reform party. The universal opposition be- 
tween the revolutionary and the constructive wings is 
resulting in the United States in the gradual victory of 
the latter element; the superior political ability of the 
editors, lawyers, ministers, professional lecturers and 
organizers who lead the reformist forces, the astuteness 
of Victor Berger, the eloquence of Spargo, the keenness 
and fairmindedness of Hillquit and Stedman, the wit of 
Thompson, the editorial experience of Lee and Simons, 
the heavy Marxian batteries of Untermann and Lewis, 

trade or labor organization applies for membership in the Socialist Labor 
party, he shall be rejected.' " — Hillquit. History of Socialism in the United 
States, p. 340. Cf. the columns of the party organ, The People, passim. 



304 SOCIALISM 

the incisive force of Hunter, give advantage in shepherd- 
ing the rank and file and maneuvering in party conven- 
tions. The force of the opposition, on the other hand, is 
somewhat weakened by the attraction which the Socialist 
Labor party, declining in numbers but not in revolutionary 
zeal, exerts upon the impossibilists. The personnel shifts: 
the revolutionaries of one convention may be the tamest 
of reformers at the next, but new exponents of the extreme 
views are thrown up by the surge of economic struggle 
and the conflict goes on unceasingly, ^ 

The opposition between the two wings comes out clearly 
in determining the attitude taken toward organized labor. 
The root and branch men are all for denouncing the craft 
unionism of the American Federation of Labor as "organ- 
ized inter-trade scabbery," a selfish, reactionary, and hope- 
less endeavor to make peace with capitalism. In its stead 
they exalt industrial unionism, strong in organization 
because including not merely the members of a single 
narrow craft but all the workers in an industry, be it min- 
ing or metal- working or transportation; socialist in spirit, 
replacing the division of interest between skilled and un- 
skilled by the common consciousness of class; revolution- 
ary in aim, looking, like French syndicalism, to the taking- 
over of the entire management of industry by the unions, 
without the intervention of the overworked state. While 
American unionists are being forced by the growing in- 
tegration of industry and the aggressiveness of employers' 
associations to close up their ranks and merge or federate 
closely connected trades, the great majority refuse to have 
anything to do with the theory of revolutionary industrial 
unionism or with the practice of its chief exponent, the 
Industrial Workers of the World, an organization which 
is a byword for factionalism and ineffectiveness. The 
opportunist wing of the Socialist party, accordingly, de- 

1 Cf. Hoxie, " Convention of the Socialist Party," Journal of Political 
Economy, xvi, p. 442. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 305 

clines to antagonize the powerful legions of trade unionism 
by taking a stand in favor of the industrial union. The 
clash of opinion leads to such ostrich devices as the adop- 
tion in official references of the non-committal term 
"labor organizations."^ The same reluctance of the one 
side to offend the unionist forces and the same determina- 
tion of the other to stick to principles at any cost shape 
the discussion over the immigration problem. Should the 
Socialist party back up the almost unanimous demand 
of the trade unions for Asiatic exclusion and their grow- 
ing hostility to European immigration? The traditional 
socialist position has been to take no count of national 
boundary lines; to the Marxian socialist the proletarian 
class the world over is one in its enmity to international 
capitalism; to the sentimental socialist the brotherhood 
of man forbids race antagonism: love and hate meet in 
extremes. Theoretical orthodoxy is strengthened by the 
apprehension of the foreign-born members of the party 
that Asiatic exclusion is only the prelude to Russian or 
Italian exclusion. The opportunist gives little weight to 
such considerations; he knows that while "Marx has been 
dead for twenty-five years," the Socialist party which 
stands for unrestricted Oriental immigration will fare 
disastrously in the political campaign with "every work- 
man who has carried a card opposing you at every turn 
and in every way." ^ 

The farmer is another source of contention. The reform- 
ist element adopts the logic of a party on the make : a major- 
ity of votes must be won; no majority can be won in the 
United States without the aid of the farmer; the aid of the 
farmer is not to be secured by proposals of land national- 
ization; therefore Mahomet must go to the mountain, the 
Socialist party must assure the farmer that he will be left 

* Cf. Proceedings of the National Convention of the Socialist Party, 
1908, p. 30, and debate, pp. 93-102. 

* Ibid., p. 121. 



306 SOCIALISM 

his little farm and indeed made the more secure in its 
possession by the nationalization of the transportation and 
machinery monopolies which threaten his independence. 
The orthodox expose the casuistry of the attempt to make 
out that private ownership of small farms is really not 
private ownership, — "When is a capitalist not acapitahst? 
When his vote is needed by the socialist statesmen from 
Milwaukee," — and urge renewed endeavors to convince 
the farmer that the inevitable socialization of all the land 
of the country will be to his advantage. The contest be- 
tween the two tendencies in the party is close and keen: 
in the 1908 convention the majority report of the Farmers' 
Committee declaring that, "as for the ownership of the 
land by the small farmers, it is not essential to the socialist 
programme that any farmer shall be dispossessed of the 
land which he himself occupies and tills," was rejected two 
to one in favor of the minority report insisting "that any 
attempt to pledge to the farmer anything but a complete 
socialization of the industries of the nation is unsocialistic." ^ 
In 1908 a referendum of the party members reversed this 
action, deciding by a decisive majority to omit from the 
programme the demand for the collective ownership of all 
land. 

The opportunist trend is seen at its height in the form- 
ulation of the immediate demands. The programme in- 
cludes proposals for relief works for the unemployed — 
based on the fallacy that the mere increase in the num- 
ber of employers is sufficient to banish unemployment — 
and calls for the collective ownership of railroads, tele- 
graphs, telephones, and steamship lines, of mines, oil-wells, 
forests, and water-power, of reforested timber land and 
reclaimed swamp land, and of national industries at the 
monopoly stage. This extensive state socialist pro- 
gramme, which might be indorsed in its entirety by a Ger- 
man bureaucrat, doubtless would appeal more favorably 
- Proceedings of the National Convention of the Socialist Party,l90S,p. 179. 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 307 

to the American people to-day than before the campaign 
for conservation began to socialize their thinking. Its 
partial advocacy by one or other of the great parties may 
be anticipated if the attempt to regulate abuses fails, but 
for the present the wholesale extension of centralized own- 
ership it proposes is not to be seriously contemplated. 
The programme of industrial demands is more moderate; 
most of its clauses simply reiterate improvements secured 
or advocated by non-socialist reformers in the United 
States and elsewhere. A shorter work-day and work-week, 
a more effective inspection of workshops and factories, — 
here is nothing revolutionary. A noteworthy indication of 
the advance toward immediate practicability is the adop- 
tion of sixteen rather than eighteen as the minimum age 
of employment for children,^ while Bismarckian compulsory 
insurance against unemployment, illness, accident, invalid- 
ism, old age and death carried the day against a proposal 
for non-contributory pensions.^ Nor are the political de- 
mands distinctively socialist; the United States might have 
the graduated income and inheritance taxes of Great Brit- 
ain, the woman suffrage of New Zealand, the initiative and 

* "If we are going to wait until we get socialism, and if we are going 
to leave the child in the factory until we get socialism, then I am not 
a socialist. . . . The child in the factory will be more grateful to the 
cheap reformer who is going to get him out of that factory hell than to 
the impossible socialist who is going to make conditions all right after 
a while — when the child is completely ruined." 

Contra: "Instead of putting in an age limit of this kind, let us put all 
our energies into getting socialism, and never mind any of these imme- 
diate demands. ... I am in favor of trying to get all the votes we 
possibly can on socialism and not on immediate demands. (Applause.) 
I know we have in this country a growing movement among socialists 
who are wanting votes no matter how they will get them. ... I hold 
that whenever the Socialist party gets so strong in power that it will be 
able to do something of permanent benefit to the working class, we will 
be able to get socialism and not immediate demands And so long as we 
are not sufficiently strong in power to get socialism, then the capitalist 
class will be in control and will allow only what they wish to allow so as 
to prolong the present system." — Ibid., pp. 207-208, 209-210. 

* Ibid. p. 211. 



308 SOCIALISM 

referendum of Switzerland, the proportional representation 
of Belgium, the single chamber of Greece, the powerlessness 
— or reluctance — of the German courts to declare laws 
unconstitutional, the independent department of labor of 
Canada, the power of the people of Australia to amend 
their constitution by a majority vote, it might make the 
practice of electing judges by the people for short terms 
universal, and still be as far from the collective common- 
wealth as ever; the march of democracy might be made 
more rapid but its march in a socialist direction no less 
problematical than before. A fitting end to what in the 
socialist vocabulary is termed a "fly-paper platform" is 
furnished by the verbal concession to the revolutionary 
wing that "such measures of relief as we are able to force 
from capitalism are but a preparation of the workers to 
seize the whole power of government, in order that they 
may thereby lay hold of the whole system of industry and 
thus come to their rightful inheritance." 

The socialist agitation will undoubtedly influence and 
strengthen the tendency to extend state power in order 
to cope with the evils of unregulated industry. That the 
people of the United States will ever be induced to abandon 
private ownership and individual initiative as the funda- 
mental basis of their industrial institutions, that in weari- 
ness of the struggle to curb the ills while preserving the 
incomparable advantages of the existing order they will 
adopt the desperate remedy of collectivism, there is little 
likelihood. Nor is it probable, in spite of the present con- 
fusion in Republican and Democratic ranks, that a power- 
ful socialist party will arise; the old-line parties share with 
the institution of private property disappointing poten- 
tialities of adaptation and renewed vitality. Socialist 
success at the polls involves many an " if"; if the progress- 
ive elements of both the Republican and the Democratic 
parties failed to gain control, if tariff exactions, mono- 
poUzation of natural resources, financial fraud and anti- 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 309 

union court decisions went on unchecked, if the oppor- 
tunist sociaHst remained in control, if a leader could be 
found magnetic enough to strike the nation's imagination 
and sane enough to win its confidence, the Socialist party 
might hope for success. But when such a party, diluted by 
the adherence of millions of half-hearted allies, bound by 
concessions to the trade unionist, to the farmer, and to the 
small business man, and controlled by politicians, hoisted 
at last the Red Flag, or rather its delicately pink-tinted 
flag, above the White House, it would find its most strenu- 
ous opposition from a party of steadfast, proletarian, un- 
reconstructed, pure and simple socialists. 

In the northern half of the continent socialism has found 
still less foothold. Canada is not yet as advanced in indus- 
trial development as the United States; agriculture dom- 
inates. Widespread poverty is unknown; the gates of op- 
portunity are open wide. The power of the Catholic Church 
in Quebec erects a solid barrier in the path of socialism. 
The cabinet system inherited from Britain and the party 
machine adopted from the United States both make 
against group politics. Only in recent years, with growing 
immigration from continental Europe and with growing 
industrial complexity, has the movement gained any 
strength. Winnipeg has a strong socialist element in its 
motley foreign quarter, Toronto, Montreal, Cape Breton, 
and a few other industrial and mining centres have small 
coteries, but it is only in British Columbia that socialism 
has developed any political importance. In the Pacific 
province the comparative weakness of the farming class, 
the prevalence of mining and other industries requiring 
large-scale capitalist investment, the discontent of failure 
in the last and farthest west, the influence of American and 
English socialism, combined with aggressive leadership, 
have given rise to a socialism of thoroughgoing Marxian 
orthodoxy, and have enabled the party to poll one fifth of 
the provincial vote. Even in British Columbia, however. 



310 SOCIALISM 

there seems little scope for further expansion, and elsewhere 
in Canada socialism is likely to remain sporadic and exotic. 

In face of the varied form and strength socialism has 
attained in the different national environments, specula- 
tion as to the future of this mighty world-wide movement 
must be confined to the most general considerations. One 
point is clear: the success of socialist ideals is not neces- 
sarily bound up with the success of socialist parties; a large 
installment of socialism might be brought about without 
the intervention of a party specifically labeled socialist, 
and a socialist party might come to power so transformed 
and modified as to have lost its right to the name. So far as 
the chief aim of socialism is concerned, the abolition of 
private property in the means of production, there seems 
no probability of success. Doubtless the expansion of 
national and municipal ownership has not yet reached its 
limit, yet there is every indication that private property 
will remain the dominant industrial feature of our western 
civilization. In the future, as in the past, it will survive 
because of its proved social utility, changing its scope and 
its attributes as new demands are made upon it, regulated 
by state insistence on the rules of the game, socialized 
by the extension of joint-stock ownership, democratized by 
trade-union sharing in determining the conditions of 
employment, moralized by the growing sense of the trustee- 
ship of wealth. So far as the future of socialist parties is 
concerned, the brief review of the present situation given 
shows the complexity of the factors to be considered. 
Where industrialism dominates, where the door of eco- 
nomic opportunity is shut, where autocratic repression is 
the policy of the state, where the parliamentary group 
system prevails, a strong socialist movement is probable. 
Where, on the contrary, industrial development is back- 
ward, or where with industrial development there has 
been maintained wide opportunity for individual better- 



THE MODERN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT Sll 

ment, where democratic reform makes steady progress, 
where cabinet government prevails or the two party system 
is strongly entrenched, where clerical opposition or racial 
division opposes barriers, the socialist movement is likely 
to be weak. Growth in political strength, again, brings 
moderation, stress on immediate betterment, appeals to 
the wider classes whose support is needed for parliament- 
ary victory. Yet, while the main trend is toward oppor- 
tunism and acceptance of the existing order, there always 
persists, within or without the ranks of the organized party, 
a minority who cling to the straitest doctrines of the school 
and wait with inextinguishable hope for the dawning of 
the day of revolution. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Of the making of books on socialism there is no end. The list of references 
given below is suggested as including the most important and most easily 
accessible works on the various phases of the movement. The pamphlets 
and periodicals issued by the party organizations in the different coun- 
tries are indispensable for an intimate acquaintance with contemporary 
developments. In Germany special reference may be made to the weekly 
organ of the orthodox wing, "Die Neue Zeit" (Stuttgart), the fortnightly 
reformist publication, " SociaHstische Monatshefte" (Berhn), and among 
the seventy-odd socialist dailies of Germany, "Vorwarts" (Berlin); con- 
sult also the extensive catalogue of books and pamphlets issued by Buch- 
handlung Vorwarts, Berlin, S. W. 68, Lindenstr. 69. The Reichsverband 
gegen die Sozialdemokratie and the political parties opposed to sociahsm, 
publish many campaign documents. For France, attention should be 
given the reformist monthly, " La revue socialiste," and the syndicaUst 
monthly, "Lemouvement socialiste"; the weekly organ of Guesdism, "Le 
Sociahsme," and the party official publication, "Le Sociahste"; the anar- 
cho-syndicaHst "La guerre sociale," and the daily, "L'Humanite," edited 
by Jaures; pamphlets may be procured from the Librairie du Parti So- 
ciahste, 16 rue de la Corderie, 16, Paris. In Great Britain the most import- 
ant pubUcations are the "Socialist Review," the monthly, and the "Labor 
Leader," the weekly, organs of the I. L. P.; the S. D. P. weekly, "Justice," 
and Blatchford's "Clarion"; the Christian Sociahst weekly, "The Com- 
monwealth," and the "Fabian News"; both the I. L. P. and the S. D. P., 
maintain publishing departments, in Manchester and London respect- 
ively. The Anti-socialist Union of Great Britain, 38, Victoria St., Lon- 
don, S. W., publishes a monthly, "Liberty," and numerous pamphlets. 
For the United States, use may be made of the " International Socialist 
Review," monthly, Chicago; the weekly "Appeal to Reason," Girard, 
Kansas, and "Social-Democratic Herald," Milwaukee; the "Chicago 
Daily Socialist" and the "New York Call" (daily). Charles Kerr and 
Company, Chicago, the Wilshire Book Company, New York, and the 
Socialist Party Headquarters, Chicago, are the chief American publishers 
of socialist books and pamphlets. For references to the literature on the 
countless social topics bearing indirectly on socialism, the general reader 
will find most help in Bliss, "New Encyclopedia of Social Reform," 
New York, 1908, and in the carefully annotated bibliography, " Guide to 
Reading in Social Ethics and Allied Subjects," Harvard University, 
Cambridge, 1910. 



S14 BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Chapter I. Gknebal Works 

1. Non-partisan expositions; Kirkup and Sombart are especially sym- 
pathetic and comprehensive in their treatment: 
Ely, Socialism and Social Reform. New York, 1894. 
KiKKUP, A History of Socialism, 4th edition. London, 1908. 
Rae, Contemporary Socialism, 3d edition. London, 1901. 
ScHAFFLE, The Quintessence of Socialism. London, 1889. 
Sombart, Socialism and the Social Movement. New York, 1909. 
Stoddabt, The New Socialism. London, 1909. 

S. Exposition and argument from socialist point of view: 
Blatchfobd, Merrie England. London, 1895. 

Britain for the British. London, 1902. 
Cohen, Sociahsm for Students. New York, 1910. 
Fabian Essays. London, 1890. 
Fabian Tracts, 1-136. London, 1907. 
Fehbi, Socialism and Positive Science. London, 1905. 
HiLLQUiT, Sociahsm in Theory and Practice. New York, 1909. 
Kelly, Twentieth Century Socialism. New York, 1910. 
Macdonald, Socialism. London, 1907. 

Socialism and Society. London, 1907. 
Morris and Bax, Socialism : its growth and outcome. London, 1897. 
Spargo, Socialism. New Y'ork, 1906. 

The Socialists: who they are and what they stand for. Chi- 
cago, 1906. 
Tugan-Baranowsky, Modem Socialism in its historical development. 

London, 1910. 
Wells, New Worlds for Old. New York, 1908. 

S, Exposition and criticism from anti-socialist point of tiiew : 
Cathrein-Gettlemann, Socialism. New York, 1904. 
Elgee and Raine, The Case against Socialism. London, 1908. 
Flint, Socialism. London, 1894. 
Graham, Socialism New and Old. London, 1907. 
GuYOT, Socialistic Fallacies. New York, 1910. 
Leroy-Beaulieu, Collectivism. New York, 1908. 
Le Rossignol, Orthodox Socialism : a Criticism. New York, 1907. 
Mackay, Plea for Liberty. London, 1892. 
Mallock, a Critical Examination of Socialism. London, 1908. 

Chapter II. The Socialist Indictment 

Brooks, The Social Unrest. New York, 1905. 
Call, The Concentration of Wealth. Boston, 1907. 
Chiozza-Money, Riches and Poverty, 7th edition. London, 1908. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY S15 

Engels, Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Lond(^, 

1892. 
Ghent, Mass and Class. New York, 1904. 
GoflRE, Three Months in a Workshop. London, 
HoBSON, The Social Problem. London, 1901. 
Hunter, Poverty. New York, 1907. 
Ladofp, American Pauperism. Chicago. 
Meter, Great American Fortunes. Chicago, 1910. 
Raubchenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis. New York, 1908. 
Rbeve, The Cost of Competition. New York, 1908. 
Vbblen, Theory of Business Enterprise. New York, 1904. 

Chapter IIL The Socialist Indictment Considered 

BosANQUBT, Aspects of the Social Problem. London, 1898. 

Civilization of Christendom. London, 1893. 
GiLMAN, Socialism and the American Spirit. London, 1893, 
Ireson, The People's Progress. London, 1909. 
Lauqhlin, Socialism a Philosophy of Failure. Scribner's Magazine, 

xlv. 

Large Fortunes. Atlantic Monthly, xcvi. 
Leroy-Beauueo, The Modern State. London, 1891. 

La Repartition de la Richesse. Paris, 1888. 
Mallock, Labour and the Popular Welfare. London, 1893. 

Classes and Masses. London, 1896. 

Aristocracy and Evolution. London, 1901. 
Strachet, Problems and Perils of SociaHsm. London, 1908. 
Sumner, What Social Classes owe to each other. New York, 1884. 

Chapter IV. Utopian Socialism 



Utopian sources: 

More, Utopia. Ed. Arber, London, 1869. 

Campanella, City of the Sun, y / 

Bacon, The New Atlantis, >• in Ideal Commonwealths, 

Harrington, Oceana, ) edited by Morley. London, 1883. 

Mablt, De la Legislation. Paris. 1776. 

Morelly, Code de la Nature. Paris, 1755. 

Godwin, Enquiry concerning PoHtical Justice. London, 1793. 

On Property. (Book viii of preceding work.) London, 1890. 
Babeuf, La Doctrine des figaux. Edited by Thomas. Paris, 1906. 
Owen, New View of Society. London, 1816. 
New Moral World. London, 1834-41. 
Fourier, Theorie de I'Unit^ universelle. 2d edition. Paris, 1838. 

Le Nouveau Monde industriel et societaire. 3d edition. Paris, 

1848. 
Selections from Fourier. Edited by Gide. London, 1901. 
CoNsiDf bant, Destinee sociale. Paris, 1836-38. 



S16 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Saint-Simon, CEuvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin. Paris, 1865-78. 
Bazard, Exposition de la doctrine de Saint-Simon. Paris, 1830-31. 
Pecqueub, Des ameliorations materielles dans leurs rapports avec la 

liberte. Paris, 1839. 
ViDAL, De la repartition des richesses et de la justice distributive. 

Paris, 1846. 
Weitling, Garantien der Harmonic und Freiheit. Jubilee edition. 

Berlin, 1908. 
Blanc, L'Organisation du travail. Paris, 1839. 
Pboudhon, What is Property? Boston, 1876. 

Commentaries: 

Barker, Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle. London, 1906. 

Bax, Rise and P'all of the Anabaptists. London, 1903. 

Booth, Saint-Simon and Saint-Simon ism. London, 1871. 

BouRGiN, Proudhon. Paris, 1901. 

Buonarotti, History of Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality. London, 

1836. 
DiEHL, Proudhon: seine Lehre und sein Leben. 1888-90. 
Ely, French and German Socialism. New York, 1893. 
. Fourniebe, Les theories socialistes au xix*^ siecle: de Babeuf 4 Proud- 
hon. Paris, 1904. 
Guthrie, Socialism before the French Revolution. New York, 1907. 
Janet, Les Origines du socialisme contemporain. Paris, 1883. 

Saint-Simon, et le Saint-Simonisme. Paris, 1878. 
Kautsky, Die Vorliiufer des neueren Sozialismus. 2d edition. Stutt* 
^ gart, 1909. 

Thomas More und seine Utopie. Stuttgart, 1907, 
^ Lichtenberger, Le Socialisme au xviii^ siecle. Paris, 1895. 
Le socialisme utopique. Paris, 1898. 
Menger, The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour. London, 1899. 
Michel, L'Idee de I'Etat. Paris, 1896. 
^ Peixotto, The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism. 
New York, 1901. 
PoDMORE, Robert Owen. London, 1906. 
Pohlmann, Geschichte des antiken Kommunismus und Sozialismus. 

Munich, 1893. 
Stein, Der Sozialismus und Kommunismus des heutigen Frankreicha, 

Leipsic, 1848. 
SuDRE, Histoire du Communisme. Paris, 1850. 
TcHERNOFF, Louis Blanc. Paris, 1904. 
War3chauer, Die Entwickelungsgeschichte des Sozialismus. Berlin, 

1909. 
Reybaud, Etudes sur les Rdformateurs contemporaina ou socialistes 
modernes. 7th edition. Paris, 1864. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 317 

Utopian experiments: 

HiLLQDiT, History of Socialism in the United States. 4ith edition. New 

York, 1906. 
Hinds, American Communities. Chicago, 1908. 
NoBDHOFF, Communistic Societies in the United States. New York, 

1875. 
NoYES, American Socialisms. Philadelphia, 1870. 
Shaw, Icaria: a Chapter in the history of Communism. New York, 

1884. 

Chapters V, VI, VH. The Marxian Analysis 

Sources: 

Marx, Capital, vols. 1-3. Chicago, 1906-09. 

Capital, vol. 1. Humboldt edition (cited in text). New York. 
Contribution to a Critique of Pohtical Economy. New York, 

1904. 
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Chicago, 1907. 
Poverty of Philosophy. London, 1900. 
Revolution and Counter-Revolution. Chicago, 1907. 
Theorien liber die Mehrwert. Stuttgart, 1904. 
Wage-Labour and Capital. London, 1907. 
Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto. London, 1906. 
Engels, Feuerbach: Origins of the Socialist Philosophy. London, 1908. 
Landmarks of Scientific Sociahsm (Anti-Duhring). London, 

1907. 
Origin of the Family. London, 1907. 
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. London, 1892. 
LASSAUiE, Reden und Schriften, ed. Bernstein. Berlin, 1893. 
Open Letter. New York, 1901. 
Workingman's Programme. New York, 1899. 
Mehring, Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich 
Engels und Ferdinand Lassalle. Stuttgart, 1902. 

Socialist Commentaries: 

Adler, Marx als Denker. Berlin, 1909. 

Adler and Hilferding, Marx-Studien. Vienna, 1904. 

Andler, Le Manifeste Communiste, introduction et commentaire, 

Paris, 1901. 
Aveling, The Student's Marx. 4th edition. London, 1902. 
BouDiN, Theoretical System of Karl Marx. Chicago, 1907. 
Deville, Principes socialistes. Paris, 1896. 
Hyndman, Economics of Socialism. London, 1909. 
Kautsky, Das Erfurter Programm. 8th edition. Stuttgart, 1907. 

Karl Marx' Oekonomische Lehren. 12th edition. Stuttgart, 

1908. 
Die historische Leistung von Karl Marx. Berlin, 1908. 



318 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Spargo, Karl Mare: His Life and Work. New York, 1909. 
Untebmann, Marxian Economics. Chicago, 1907. 

Criticism by non-socialists: 

Adleb, Die Grundlagen der Karl Marxschen Kritik der bestehendoi 

Volkswirtschaft. Tubingen, 1897. 
BiERMANN, Die Weltanschauung des Marxismus. Leipsic, 1908. 
Hammacheb, Das philosophisch-okonomische System des Marxismus. 

Leipsic, 1909. 
Masabyk, Die philosophischen und sociologischen Grundlagen des 

Marxismus. Vienna, 1899. 
SiMKHoviTCH, Marxism versus Socialism. Political Science Quarterly, 

vol. 23-25, 1908-10. 
Slonimski, Versuch einer Kritik der Karl Marxschen Okonomischen 

Theorieen. Berlin, 1899. 
Veblen, The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and his Followers. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics, xx, 575, and xxi, 299. 

Criticism by revisionist socialists: 

Bebnstein, Evolutionary Socialism. London, 1909. 

Zur Geschichte und Theorie des SociaUsmus. Berlin, 1901. 

Der Revisionismus in der Sozialdemokratie. Amsterdam. 

Oppenheimeb, Das Grundgesetz der Marxschen Gesellschaftslehre. 

Berlin, 1903. 
Tuqan-Babanowsky, Theoretische Grundlagen des Marxismus. 

Leipsic, 1905. 
'Weisengbun, Der Marxismus und das Wesen der sozialen Frage. 
Leipsic, 1900. 
Cf . especially the files of Socialistische Monatshefte. 

In addition to the above general discussions of Marxism, the follow- 
ing special references are helpful : 

On the materialistic conception of history: 

Babth, Die Philosophic der Geschichte als Sociologie. Leipsic, 1897. 

Bax, Essays in Socialism, New and Old. London, 1907. 

Commons, Class Conflict in America. American Journal of Sociology, 
vol. IS. 

Kautsky, Ethics and the Materialistic Conception of History. Chi- 
cago, 1907. 

Labbiola, Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History. Chi- 
cago, 1904. 

Lafabgue, Le determinisme ^conomique de Karl Marx. Paris, 1909. 

LoBiA, Economic Foundations of Society. London, 1907. 

Stammleb, Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Ge- 
schichtsaufiEassung. Leipsic, 1896. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 319 

WoLTMAN, Der historische Materialismus. DUsseldorf, 1900. 
PiiiNT, Philosophy of History in Europe. Edinburgh, 1874. 

Of these Kautsky, Labriola, Lafargue, and Loria defend the Marxian 
position. 

On value and surplus value: 

Bohm-Bawerk, Karl Marx and the Close of his System. London, 
1898. 

FiacHEH, Die Marxsche Werttheorie. Berlin, 1889. 

Lbxis, The Concluding Volume of Marx's Capital, in Quarterly Jour- 
nal of Economics, vol. 10, 1895. 

Schmidt, Der dritte Band des Kapital. Sozialpol. Zentralblatt, iv, no. 
22. 

SoMBABT, Zur Kritik des Okonomischen Systems von Karl Marx. Ar- 
chiv filr Soziale Gesetzgebung, u. s. w., vii, 1894. 

VON BoKTKiEWicz, Wertrechnung und Preisrechnung im Marxschen 
System. Archiv filr Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, xxiii-xxv. 
Cf. especially the files of Die Neue Zeit, and bibliography by Som- 
bart in Archiv filr Sozialwissenschaft, etc., xx, 413. 

On the law of capitalist development: 

Beveridge, Unemployment: a Problem of Industry. London, 1909. 
BouBGUiN, Les syst^mes socialistes et revolution ^conomique. Paris, 

1907. 
David, Sozialismus und Landwirtschaft: 1. Die Betriebsfrage. Ber- 

lin, 1903. 
Kautsky, Die Agrarfrage. Stuttgart, 1899. 

Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm. Stutt- 
gart, 1899. 
Kampp5TJEYER, Zur Kritik der Marxschen Entwickelungslehre. Sozial- 

istische Monatshefte, 1898. 
Simons, The American Farmer. 2d edition. Chicago, 1906. 
von Strtjve, Die Theorie der sozialen Entwickelung bei Karl Marx. 

Archiv filr soziale Gesetzgebung, etc., xiv, 1899. 
Wolf, Sozialismus und kapitalistische Wirtschaftsordnung. StutU 

gart, 1892. 

Chapter VIIL The Modern Sociaust Ideal 

Atlanticus, Ein Blick in den Zukunftsstaat. 1898. 
Bebel, Woman under Socialism. New York, 1904. 
Bellamy, Looking Backward. Boston, 1888. 
Gronlund, The Cooperative Commonwealth. London, 1896. 
Jaures, Organisation socialiste. Revue socialiste, 1895-96. 
Kautsky, The Social Revolution. Chicago, 1908. 
Macdonald, SociaHsm and Government. London, 1909. 
■ Mengeb, Neue Staatslehre. 3d edition. Jena, 1906. 



320 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

MoBKis, News from Nowhere. London, 1896. 
Renabd, Regime socialiste. Revue socialiste. 1897-98. 

Le Soeialisme a I'oeuvre. Paris, 1907. 
Vandebvelde, Collectivism and Industrial Revolution. Chicago, 1901. 

Essais socialistes. Paris, 1906. 
Wells, A Modem Utopia. London, 1905. 

Socialism and the Family. London, 1907. 
Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism. Boston, 1910. 

Criticisms of socialist •proposals: 

GoNNEB, The Socialist State : its nature, aims and conditions. London, 

1895. 
GuYOT, The Tyranny of Socialism. London, 1895. 
HiBSCH, Democracy versus Socialism. London, 1901. 
Mackay, editor, A Plea for Liberty. London, 1892. 
Naquet, Collectivism and Socialism. London, 1891. 
RiCHTEB, Pictures of the Socialist Future. London, 1894. 
Schaffle, The Impossibility of Social Democracy. London, 1898. 

Chapter IX. The Modebn Socialist Movement 

General: 

Ensob, Modem Socialism. 3d edition. New York, 1910. 
Babdotjx, etc. Le Socialisme h. I'etranger. Paris, 1909. 
Hunter, Socialists at Work. New York, 1908. 
Plechanoff, Anarchism and Socialism. London, 1906. 

Socialism and Christianity: 

Bliss, New Encyclopedia of Social Reform. New York, 1908. 
Campbell, Christianity and the Social Order. London, 1907. 
Clifford, Socialism and the Teaching of Christ, Fabian tract no. 78, 

with bibliography. London, 1906. 
Forsyth, Socialism, the Church and the Poor. London, 1908. 
Goldstein, Socialism; the nation of fatherless children. Boston, 1903. 
Hartman, Socialism versus Christianity. New York, 1909. 
Kaufmann, Christian Socialism. London, 1888. 
Mathews, The Social Teachings of Jesus. New York, 1905. 
Ming, The Characteristics and the Religion of Modern Socialism. 

New York, 1908. 
NiTTi, Catholic Socialism. New York, 1908. 
Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question. New York, 1904. 
Ratjschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis. New York, 190& 
Stang, Socialism and Christianity. New York, 1905. 
W^estcott, Social Aspects of Christianity. London, 1887. 
WooDWOBTH, Christian Sociahsm in England. New York, 1903. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 321 

The International: 

GuiLLAUME, L'Internationale: documents et souvenirs. Paris, 1905. 

Jaeckh, The International. London, 1905. 

LissAGABAT, History of the Commune of 1871. London, 1889. 

Germany: 

Bebel, Die Sozialdemoltratie im Deutschen Reichstag, 1871-189S, 

Berlin, 1909. 
Bernstein, Ferdinand Lassalle. London, 1893. 
Bhunhuber, Die heutige Sozialdemokratie. Jena, 1906. 
Dawson, Bismarck and State Socialism. London, 1890. 

German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle. London, 1891. 
Kamptfmbtkb, Changes in the Theory and Tactics of the German 
Social Democracy. Chicago, 1908. 
Die Sozialdemokratie im Lichte der Kulturentwicke- 
lung. Berlin, 1907. 
Kautbky, The Road to Power. Chicago, 1908. 
Mbhbing, Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, 4th ed. Stutt- 
gart, 1909. 
MiLHAUD, La democratic socialiste allemande. Paris, 1903. 
Parvus, Der Klassenkampf des Proletariats. Berlin, 1908-10. 
Rosa Luxembourg, Sozialreform oder Sozialrevolution, 2d. ed. 

Leipsic, 1908. 
ScHiPPEL, Sozialdemokratisches Reichstags-handbuch. Berlin, 1902. 
Sisyphusarbeit oder positive Erfolge; Generalkommission der Ge- 

werkschaften Deutschlands. Berlin, 1910. 
Handbuch fiir nicht sozialdemokratische Wahler. Reichsverband 
gegen die Sozialdemokratie. Berlin, 1907. 

France: 

BouRDEAU, L'evolution du socialisme. Paris, 1901. 
Biblioth^que du Mouvement Socialiste: Lagardelle, etc., Syndicalisme 
et Socialisme; Pouget, La Confederation Generale du Travail; Sorel, 
La Decomposition du Marxisme; Griffuelhes, L' Action Syndicaliste; 
. Berth, Les Nouveaux Aspects du Socialisme, etc. Paris, 1908. 
GouLUT, Le Socialisme au Pouvoir. Paris, 1910. 
Jaur^is, Studies in Socialism. New York, 1906. 
Kritsky, L'evolution du syndicalisme en France. Paris, 1908. 
Mermeix, Le Syndicalisme contre le socialisme. Paris, 1907. 
MiLHAUD, La Tactique socialiste. Paris, 1905. 
Millerand, Le socialisme reformiste fran^ais. Paris, 1903. 
Z^VAis, Le sociaUsme en France depuis 1871. Paris, 1908. 

United Kingdom: 

Arnold-Forster, English Socialism of To-day. London, 1908. 
Barker, British Socialism. London, 1908. 



822 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Noel, The Labor Party. London, 1906. 

ViLLiERS, The SociaUst Movement in England. London, 19081 

Webb, SociaUsm in England. 2d edition. London, 1893. 

United States: 

HiLLQUiT, History of Socialism in the United States. 4th edition. 

New York, 1906. 
Simons, Class Struggles in America. Chicago, 1909. 
SoMBART, Warum gibt es im den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialis- 

mus? Tubingen, 1906. 
Thompson, Constructive Programme of Socialism. Milwaukee, 1908. 

For each country the reports of the annual or biennial congresses, 
which may be procured from the party publishers mentioned above, are 
essential; the international movement is surveyed in the reports made to 
the International Congresses by the national party secretaries, and in the 
Congress debates, both published by the Secretariat socialiste interna- 
tional, rue Heyvaert, 63, Brussels. 



INDEX 



Adulteration, charged against cap- 
italism, 25; the remedies, 51. 

Agrarian programme in Germany, 
243; in France, 260; in United 
States, 306. 

Allemanists, 58. 

Alliance of socialists with bourgeois 
parties, in Germany, 235, 237, 
252; in France, 259, 262-7, 281; 
in United Kingdom, 294-9. 

Anabaptist communism, 6. 

Analysis of capitalism, second as- 
pect of socialism, 2; Utopian, 12, 
62-75; Marxian, 95-176; Fabian, 



Anarchism, relation to socialism, 

186, 256. 
Anseele, 14. 
Ashley, cited, 106 n. 
Auer, 14, 278. 
Austria, socialism in, 282, 
Aveling, 286. 

Babeuf, place in socialist develop- 
ment, 10. 

Bacon, 7. 

Baden, socialists and budget, 238. 

Bakunin, 186, 228. 

Ball, John, 16; quoted, 29. 

Ballon, quoted, 65 n. 

Bax, quoted, 6 n., 217 n.; 286. 

Bebel, 14, 181, 216, 231, 243, 248, 
249, 278; quoted, 186 n., 191 n., 
197 n., 236 n., 239 n., 240. 

Belgium, socialism in, 282. 

Bellamy, 182. 

Berger, 303. 

Bernstein, 135, 250; quoted, 33; 
cited, 157 n. 

Berth, 268. 



Besant, Annie, 202. 

Bismarck, 230, 242 n. 

Blanc, Louis, place in socialist de- 
velopment, 12; on concentration, 
155; failure of projects in 1848, 
224. 

Bland, 288. 

Blanqui, 222, 257. 

Blatchford, 290, 298 n. 

Bodin, 101. 

Bogart, quoted, 162 n. 

Bohm-Bawerk, 117, 121, 132. 

Born, 224. 

Boudin, 108, 176 n.; quoted, 120 n., 
136 n. 

Boulanger, 259. 

Bourguin, 157 n., 171 n., 197 n. 

Bray, 71 n. 

Bright, 25. 

Broussists, 258. 

Brunhuber, quoted, 238 n., 244. 

Buckle, 101, 104. 

Budget, socialist attitude toward, 
237. 

Bullock, cited, 158 n. 

Buonarroti, 222. 

Burns, 286. 

Cabet, 82; quoted, 64. 

Calwer, quoted, 179 n. 

Campanella, 7. 

Campaign against capitalism, 
fourth aspect of socialism, 3; 
Utopian, 12, 86-94; modern, 13, 
220-311. 

Canada, socialism in, 309. 

Capital, constant and variable, 126, 
131, 138; social functions recog- 
nized, 209. 

Capitalism, antithesis of socialism, 



324 



INDEX 



1-3; nineteenth century develop- 
ment, 11; indictment against, 
21-40; indictment against con- 
sidered, 41-61; Utopian analysis 
of, 62-75; Marxian analysis of, 
95-176. 

Carlyle, quoted, 24 n. 

Carpenter, 216. 

Cathrein, quoted, 19 n.; cited, 247 n. 

Centralization of wealth, 163-166. 

Champion, 286. 

Chiozza-Money, quoted, 34, 153. 

Christianity, communism in primi- 
tive, 5; and discontent, 19; and 
socialism, in Germany, 246; in 
United Kingdom, 290. 

Churchill, quoted, 185 n. 

City and discontent, 19. 

Clark, J. B., cited, 139 n. 

Clarke, Wm., 288. 

Class struggle, in Marxian theory, 
101, 107-114, 174. 

Class and political party, in Ger- 
many, 244; in France, 273; in 
United Kingdom, 292 n., 298; m 
United States, 303. 

Combes bloc, 265. 

Commission government, 194. 

Communism of Babeuf and Cabet, 
82; standard of distribution, 202. 

Community experiments, 89-94. 

Compensation or expropriation, 
182, 210. 

Compere-Morel, quoted, 260 n. 

Competition, evil effects charged, 
on production of goods, 22-29, 
on condition of workers, 29-40; 
social utiUty of, 42-46; regula- 
tion, 46-59; moral effect, 59. 

Concentration of industry, 155- 
163. 

Confederation genlrale du travail, 
268-280. 

Considerant, 66-89, 155. 

Consumption, saner standards nec- 
essary, 59. 

Cooperation, 15, 89, 227, 240, 255. 

Crisis, count in socialist indictment, 



25; place in Marxian theory, 166- 
171. 
Croce, 123 n. 

Danger to workmen, 32. 

Davenport, 116 n. 

David, quoted, 154; cited, 159 n., 
161. 

Decay of old ties and discontent, 17. 

Definition of sociahsm, 1. 

Delesalle. 268. 

Demand and supply, lack of ad- 
justment charged, 25; how ad- 
justment effected, 44. 

Democracy and discontent, 17. 

Deville, 171. 

Diderot, 63. 

Discontent, its causes, 16-21; es- 
sential to progress, 61. 

Distribution of wealth, unfairness 
charged, 34; charge considered, 
58; in Fourier's scheme, 79; in 
Saint-Simonist ideal, 81; stand- 
ards proposed to-day, 201-207; 
how effected, 207. 

Dreyfus affair, 262. 

Duma abolishes communal land 
holding, 45. 

Efficiency, how maintained under 
sociahsm, 209. 

Eltzbacher, cited, 256. 

Ely, quoted, 214 n. 

Emerick, cited, 162 n. 

Employer, oppression charged, 30; 
betterment activities, 53. 

Engels, on value, 122; on agricul- 
ture, 159; on crisis, 168-171; on 
money, 198; in 1848 uprising, 224; 
quoted, indictment, 35, 37, 38; 
on materialistic conception of 
history, 97-99, 102 n., 108 n.; on 
services of Marx, 115; on disap- 
pearance af state, 185; on distri- 
bution, 205 ; on class war in Eng- 
land, 223 n., 283; on agriculture, 
261; on S. D. F., 286; on Fabians. 
287. 



INDEX 



S25 



Environment, importance in Uto- 
pian theory, 64. 

Erfurt programme, 164 n. ; 238, 245. 

Exaggeration in socialist indictmen t, 
41. 

Exploitation of consumers, Fourier, 
67; of workingmen, Fourier, 68, 
Saint-Simon, 71, Marx, 126. 

Expropriation or compensation of 
capitalists, 182, 210. 

Fabbri, 186 n. 
Fabian socialism, 287, 290. 
Family, under socialism, 216. 
Farmer and concentration, 159- 

163; and socialism, in Germany, 

243; in France, 260; in United 

States, 306. 
Fatalism in Marxism, 221. 
Ferri, 14. 
Feuerbach, 78. 
Fisher, quoted, 37. 
Fourier, 11; analysis, 66-70, 74; 

ideal, 76-80, 84; tactics, 86-94. 
France, Utopian socialism in, 62- 

94; modern movement in, 252- 

282; environment, 252; groups, 

257; reformist drift, 258-267; 

syndicalism, 267-280; present 

tendencies, 280-282. 
Fraud, commercial, 25; financial, 

27; remedies, 51. 

General strike, 277-279. 

Germany, socialist movement in, 
229-252; characteristics, 229; op- 
posing parties, 231; evolution in 
tactics, 232-238; in aims, 238- 
251; outlook, 251. 

Ghent, quoted, 26 n., 32; cited, 162. 

Oilman, Charlotte, quoted, 25 n. 

Gohre, quoted, 38 n. 

Goldscheid, cited, 178 n. 

Gonner, quoted, 116 n. 

Gracchi, 4. 

Graft, charged against capitalism, 
26. 

Graham, 205. 



Grayson, 297. 

Griff uelhes, 268, 270, 271; quoted, 

278. 
Gronlund, 182. 
Guesde, 14, 257-267, 271, 272, 278, 

281. 

Hardie, quoted, 30; 211, 219. 

Harrison, quoted, 30 n. 

Haywood, 40. 

Hegel, theory of development, 96- 
97; influence on Marxism, 101, 
113-114, 174. 

Heine, 248. 

Herve, 249, 279, 281. 

Hillquit, quoted, 93, 186, 198 n., 
202 n., 213, 302. 

History, Fourier's view of, 68; 
Saint-Simon's, 72; nineteenth 
century attitude, 95; materialis- 
tic conception of, 95-114. 

Hobson, quoted, 37; cited, 139 n. 

Holland, socialism in, 282. 

Housing, conditions of the masses, 
35; improvement in England, 
149. 

Hoxie, cited, 304 n. 

Hyndman, 14, 287 n. 

Ideal organizations of society, third 
aspect of socialism, 2; Utopian, 
12, 76-86; modern, 177-219. 

Immigration, American socialist 
attitude toward, 305. 

Independent Labor Party, United 
Kingdom, 290. 

Indictment of capitalism, first as- 
pect of socialism, 2; stated, 22- 
40; considered, 41-60. 

Individual initiative, its importance, 
43, 212; does not involve isola- 
tion, 43; nor industrial anarchy, 
44; not sole force in existing 
order, 47. 

Industrial reserve army, 140-143; 
revolution, 3, 15. 

Industry, concentration of, 156- 
163. 



326 



INDEX 



Insurance, worklngmen's, 55, 242 n. 
International Workingmen's Asso- 
ciation, 226-229. 
Italy, socialism in, 282. 

Jaeckh, quoted, 227 n. 
Jaures, 14, 258, 262-282; quoted, 
192, 221 n. 

KampfFmeyer, cited, 176 n. 

Kautsky, on increasing misery, 151 ; 
on details of ideal, 180; on vari- 
ety of socialist organization, 187; 
on money under socialism, 197; 
on increase of production, 209; 
on militarism, 249; leader of anti- 
revisionist forces, 250; quoted, 
7, 102, 103, 112 n., 123, 221 ; cited, 
139 n., 158 n., 184 n., 201 n., 
242 n. 

Kerr, May Walden, quoted, 38 n. 

Kingsley, 290. 

Komorzynski, quoted, 120 n., 
cited, 133 n. 

Kritchewsky, quoted, 250. 

Labor movement inevitable, 15; 

theory of value, 115-136; party 

in England, 291-299. 
Labriola, Antonio, cited 108 n. 
Labriola, Arturo, 268. 
Lagardelle, 268. 
Lassalle, 14; iron law of wages, 

143-144; 224; 230; 231; 240; 241; 

248; quoted, 18 n. 
Lecky, cited, 5 n. 
Ledebour, 249. 
Lee, 303. 
Leone, 268. 

Leroy-Beaulieu, cited, 44 n., 129 n. 
Levellers, 6. 
Lewis, 303. 
Lexis, 133. 

Liberty under socialism, 215. 
Lichtenberger, cited, 9 n. 
Liebknecht, Karl, 249. 
Liebknecht, Wilhelm, 14, 224, 231, 

233, 235, 236 n. 



Lilbume, 6. 
Lollards, 6. 

Mably, 10. 

Macdonald, quoted, 217 n.; 291. 
Machiavelli, quoted, 105. 
Machine discipline and socialism, 
20; relation to unemployment, 
57. 
Mann, 286. 

Marriage, in Fourier's plan, 79; at- 
titude of modern socialism, 216. 
Marx, shaping influences, 13; ser- 
vice to sociaUsm, 13; picture of 
factory evils, 33; materialistic 
conception of history, 95-114; 
theory of value and surplus 
value, 115-136; law of capitalist 
development, 137-176; summary 
of analysis, 172; theory crumb- 
ling, 174; relation to classical 
economics, 172, 175; weakness 
on constructive side, 177; atti- 
tude to the State, 185; advocacy 
of labor notes, 197; standard of 
distribution, 202, 205; place in 
development of socialist move- 
ment, 221; revolution, 222; the 
International, 228; coSperation, 
240; doctrine in France, 253; 
claimed by syndicalists, 275; 
stereotyped by S. D. P. in 
United Kingdom, 285; and the 
British Labor party, 292 n. 
Masaryk, quoted, 112 n. 
Materialistic conception of history, 

95-114. 
Maurice, 290. 
Mazzini, 228. 
Meade, quoted, 28 n. 
Menger, cited, 10 n. 
Meslier, 9. 
Michels, 268. 

Middle class, alleged disappear- 
ance of, 163-166. 
Middleman, attacked, 23, 67; at- 
tack on, considered, 50; and sta- 
tistician, 211. 



INDEX 



827 



Militarism, German socialist atti- 
tude, 247; French. 279. 

Millerand, 258, 262, 263. 

Mill, on competition, 23. 

Ming, 247 n. 

Minority, right to rule, 257, 280. 

Misery, entailed by capitalism, 29; 
doctrine of increasing, 146-154. 

Monotony of factory labor, 31, 50. 

Moral effects of capitalism, 37, 59. 

More, Utopia, beginning of modern 
socialism, 7. 

Morelly, 9. 

Morgan, J. E., quoted, 40. 

Morgan, quoted, 103. 

Morris, 16, 26, 286; quoted, 217 n. 

Mortality of workers, 37, 149. 

MUnster, 6. 

Nansen, quoted, 103. 
Nature, beneficent design, 63. 
Noske, 249. 
Noyes, quoted, 90, 91. 

Olivier, 288. 

Oppenheimer, cited, 135 n. 
Owen, 11; analysis, 62, 64, 65, 66, 

74; ideal, 76, 80, 85; movement, 

89, 91, 92. 

Panacea for capitalistic ills, see 
Ideal organizations of society. 

Parliament, socialist attitude, in 
Germany, 233-238; in France, 
259-267; syndicalist attitude, 
271-4. 

Passion, place in Fourier's ideal 
community, 77. 

Pearson, quoted, 200 n. 

Pease, 288. 

Pecqueur, 155. 

Pelloutier, 268. 

Phalanx, Fourier's unit of organiza- 
tion, 76-80. 

Plato, ideal communism, 3. 

Population, difficulties in socialist 
state. 218. 

Possibilists, in France, 258. 



Pouget, 268. 

Poverty, under capitalism, 34; in- 
dictment considered, 38. 

Private property, indicted, 22-40; 
based on social utility. 45; stimu- 
lus to production, 212. 

Profit, and social gain, 22; source 
in surplus value, 126; in coopera- 
tive labor, 129; not proportional 
to variable capital, 131. 

Propaganda facilities, and increase 
of discontent, 21. 

Proudhon, transition to scientific 
socialism, 12; influence in Inter- 
national, 228. 

Psychology of unrest, 16-21. 

Reformists, in Germany, 250-2; in 
France. 259-267, 275; in United 
Kingdom, Fabians, 288-290, La- 
bor party, 292-299; in United 
States, 303-309. 

Reforms, attitude of socialists, in 
Germany, 238-246, 249; in 
France, 260-261; in United 
Kingdom, 295; in United States, 
306-8. 

Religion, socialist attitude to, 246. 

Renard, quoted, 196 n. 

Revisionists, 175, 250. 

Ricardo, 115. 

Robinson, cited, 103 n. 

Roosevelt, quoted, 28. 

Ross, quoted, 218. 

Rousseau. 8. 

Ruskin, 26. 

Saint-Simon, 11; transitional posi- 
tion, 70; advance made by his 
school, 71; analysis of capital- 

, ism, 71, 74; view of history, 72; 
organization of industry, 81. 

Scandinavia, socialism in, 282. 

Schaffle, 181, 205. 

Schippel, 242, 243, 246 n., 248. 

Schuster, 222. 

Seligman, 101, 103. 

Shaw, G. B., 183, 288. 



S28 



INDEX 



Simkliovitch, 135 n. 

Simons, 36, 159, 163, 182, 191 n., 
303. 

Singer, 232. 235. 

Smith. Adam. 23, 48, 65. 

Snowden, 291. 

Social Democratic party, in United 
Kingdom, 286-287. 

Sombart, 122, 133 n., 148 n., 158. 

Sorel, 268. 

Sparge, quoted. 106, 199, 303. 

Stadthagen, 249. 

State, principles of action, 47; pro- 
tection for workers. 53; r61e in 
organization of socialist society, 
185. 

Stedman, 303. 

Stimulus to productivity: under 
socialism, 212-214. 

Surplus value, source, 126; connec- 
tion with labor- value theory, 127; 
untenability of doctrine. 127- 
130; inconsistency, 130-134; im- 
portance in Marxian system, 134- 
136. 

Syndicalism, its ideal of future. 186; 
definition, 267; causes of growth, 
268; relation to other movements, 
269; constructive policy. 274; 
general strike. 277; anti-militar- 
ism. 279; efiFect on socialist move- 
ment in France, 280. 

Tactics, fourth aspect of socialism, 
3; Utopian, 86-94; change to 
greater aggressiveness, 220; fatal- 
ism, 221; force. 222; Interna- 
tional organization, 227; national 
development, 228-311. 

Taff Vale decision, 291. 

Taxation, confiscatory, 184. 

Thompson, 71 n. 

Tugan-Baranowsky, 104, 107, 170 
n., 171. 

Turati, 14. 

Unemployment, charged against 
capitalism, 33; and machinery. 



67; insurance against, 65, 142 n.; 
effect of industrial reserve army, 
140. 

Union organization as aid to work- 
ingmen, 54; attitude of German 
socialism, 240-2; of French so- 
cialism and syndicalism, 269, 
274-280; of British socialism, 
291; of American socialism, 
304. 

United Kingdom, socialism in, 282- 
299; environment, 283; Social 
Democratic party, 285; Fabians, 
287; Independent Labor party, 
290; Labor party, 291. 

United States, socialism in, 299- 
308; forces making against, 299, 
and for, 301; development, 301; 
present opportunism, 303-8; out- 
look, 308. 

Unrest, its causes, 16-21. 

Untermann, 122, 303. 

Utopian schemes of Plato, 8; of 
More, 7; of eighteenth century 
French writers, 8; analysis, 62- 
73. 75; ideal. 76; tactics, persua- 
sion and experiment. 86-94. 

Vaillant. 257. 264. 

Value. Marx's labor theory stated, 
115-117; criticism. 117-121; at- 
tempted reinterpretations, 121- 
5; and surplus value, 127. 

Vandervelde, 14, 158 n., 183 n., 193, 
213, 278. 

Veblen, quoted, 13 n., 20, 27. 46, 
63. 100. Ill, 123, 140, 163 n., 
249. 

VoUmar, von, 243. 

Wages, Marxian theory of, 126; 
Lassalle's iron law, 143; and in- 
dustrial reserve army, 144; un- 
der socialism, 200-207; under 
present system, 207. 

Wage-slavery, charged against cap- 
italism, 30; considered, 52; con- 
ditions under socialism, 211. 



INDEX 



3j29 



Waldeck-Rousseau, 264. 
Wallas, 288. 
Waste, competitive, 22. 
Wealth, centralization, 163. 
Weatherly, quoted, 10 n. 
Webb. 39, 186 n., 203, 288. 



Weitling, 222. 
Wells. 180 n.. 217 ». 

Yvetot. 208. 

Zetkin, Clara, 269. 



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